June 14-16, 2013, at Ozark Theosophical Camp, Arkansas, U.S.A.
http://www.theosophical.org/
18
April
On the eternal Germ
By Ingmar de Boer on April 18, 2013 at 6:46 pm
In The Secret Doctrine, in volume I, stanza II, śloka 5-6 (SD I, 28), the Book of Dzyan speaks of a germ from which the universe is born:
5. THE SEVEN SONS WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT; AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS.
6. THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL CONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM. . . .
In SD I, 1 we find an explanation of this twofold germ in terms of the symbols displayed on the palm leaves of the archaic document mentioned by HPB in the first lines of the Proem:
The point in the hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg [...], the germ within the latter which will become the Universe, the ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being latent and active, periodically and by turns.
The central point in the circle in the second archaic symbol represents the eternal germ. This germ is one of the fundamental aspects of the unmanifested universe. In SD I, 379 we find another important clue as to the nature of the germ:
The spirit of Fire (or Heat), which stirs up, fructifies, and develops into concrete form everything (from its ideal prototype), which is born of WATER or primordial Earth, evolved Brahma — with the Hindus. The lotus flower, represented as growing out of Vishnu’s navel — that God resting on the waters of space and his Serpent of Infinity — is the most graphic allegory ever made: the Universe evolving from the central Sun, the POINT, the ever-concealed germ.
The navel of Viṣṇu is symbolic for the eternal germ, the central point in the Mundane Egg.
From SD I, 381n we learn that we might look for this allegory, or creation story, “in Indian Puranas”:
* In Indian Puranas it is Vishnu, the first, and Brahma, the second logos, or the ideal and practical creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the lotus, the other as issuing from it.
There are several versions of the story of the birth of Brahmā, for example one of these is found in Manusmṛti chapter I, verses 10-17 and another one in the Mahabhārata book III, section 270. The Manusmṛti version is referred to by HPB in SD I, 333. In the Viṣṇu Purāṇa the story is touched upon several times. In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa however, BhP III.8.10-17, we find a fairly detailed version of the story. In verse 10 in the French 1840 translation of Eugène Burnouf, the primordial state of of the universe is presented like this:
10. Au temps où l’univers tout entier était submergé par les eaux, celui dont les yeux ne se ferment s’abandonna au sommeil, couché sur un lit formé par le Roi des serpents, solitaire, inactif, et trouvant sa dans sa propre béatitude.
We may recognize the waters as the darkness or space from the Book of Dzyan, and the bed formed by the King of serpents, as eternal duration. The serpent in this version of the story is called Śeṣa, and in some other versions it is called Ānanta, meaning endless or eternal. In SD I, 73 we have:
Sesha or Ananta, ‘the couch of Vishnu,’ is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of this germ, the manifested Universe….”.
Viṣṇu’s state of sleep in verse 10 represents pralaya, the tamasic state, a state of inertia. Then there are three qualities attributed to the pralayic state of Viṣṇu: 1. solitaire, 2. inactif, and 3. trouvant sa dans sa propre béatitude. The Sanskrit (see GRETIL: Gaudiya Grantha Mandira) terms here are 1. eka, 2. kṛtakṣaṇa and 3. svātmaratau nirīha:
10. udāplutaṃ viśvam idaṃ tadāsīd yan nidrayāmīlitadṛṅ nyamīlayat
ahīndratalpe ‘dhiśayāna ekaḥ kṛtakṣaṇaḥ svātmaratau nirīhaḥ
The term eka simply means “one”, a term we come across very frequently in volume I of The Secret Doctrine. It is slightly different from Burnouf’s “solitaire”, as it is a more philosophical term indicating primordial unity, rather than isolation or separateness.
Kṛtakṣaṇa would be something like “waiting for the right moment”, composed of kṛta, “done”, and kṣaṇa, “moment”. (Monier-Williams) An alternative “in leisure time”, “waiting”, “pausing”, as opposed to “inactif”, would incorporate the element of time, which is important in subsequent verses. (kāla)
Svātmaratau means “both his own self and delighting”, and nirīha is “indifferent”, “without desire”, “effortless”, or “motionless”, so svātmaratau nirīhaḥ might be translated as “remaining in unity, delighting, without effort”.
In BhP III.8.13-14 the lotus is produced from the navel of Viṣṇu:
13. L’essence subtile, renfermée au sein de celui dont le regard pénètre les molécules élémentaires des choses, agitée par la qualité de la Passion qui s’était développée sous l’influence du temps, sortit, pour créer, de la région de son nombril.
14. Elle s’éleva rapidement sous la forme d’une tige de lotus, par l’action du temps qui réveille les œuvres; ce lotus dont l’Esprit [suprême] est la matrice, éclairait, comme le soleil, de sa splendeur la vaste étendue des eaux.
The corresponding Sanskrit is:
13. tasyārthasūkṣmābhiniviṣṭadṛṣṭer antargato ‘rtho rajasā tanīyān
guṇena kālānugatena viddhaḥ sūṣyaṃs tadābhidyata nābhideśāt
14. sa padmakośaḥ sahasodatiṣṭhat kālena karmapratibodhanena
svarociṣā tat salilaṃ viśālaṃ vidyotayann arka ivātmayoniḥ
The quality of Passion, rajas, stimulates primordial matter, which rises up through the navel taking the form of the bud or stalk of a lotus. (padmakośa)
In verse 13 we have kālānugatena, which is kāla + anugata + -ena, “through acquirement with time” (cf. Monier-Williams), corresponding to Burnouf’s “qui s’était développée sous l’influence du temps”. An alternative would be “after a certain period”, “at a certain time/moment”. In verse 14 we have kālena, “by time”, or “through the workings of time”, “par l’action du temps”, and again an alternative would be the instrumental of time: “in time”, “at a certain moment” or perhaps even HPB’s more poetic “when the hour has struck”.
No. 47.110/60 1 in The National Museum, New Delhi
Returning to the enigmatic quotation from the “Occult Catechism” in SD I, 11:
“What is it that ever is?” “Space, the eternal Anupadaka.”* “What is it that ever was?” “The Germ in the Root.” “What is it that is ever coming and going?” “The Great Breath.” [..]
The eternal germ is the principle “that ever was” because it is at any time the origin of the current world process. It is the First Logos, or as we have seen, in terms of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Viṣṇu, or more specifically the navel of Viṣṇu.
- Burnouf-BhP-t-I-p-191-192.pdf (219 kB)
- On-the-eternal-Germ-2.pdf (228 kB)
Category: Brahma, Creation Stories, Darkness, Duration, Space | 2 comments
31
March
Kāraṇa, the Causeless Cause
By Ingmar de Boer on March 31, 2013 at 5:24 pm
In SD I, 280 we find that by HPB the “Causeless Cause of All Causes” is identified with kāraṇa:
The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart — invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through “the still small voice” of our spiritual consciousness.
As we have seen in The footnote in SD I, 14-15, the “Causeless One Cause”, the “Rootless Root” is the unmanifested Logos, which we have called the First Logos. (see The Three Logoi)
In SD I, 41 (explaining stanza I śloka 5) is stated that in the period of pralaya, when the universe has returned to its “one primal and eternal cause”, that
“Karana” — eternal cause — was alone.
In SD I, 93 we find in stanza IV śloka 4 the “eternal nidana”, or nidāna, which is a Sanskrit word for cause, the first cause in particular, or the cause of existence (cf. Monier-Williams), which in stanza IV śloka 5 is identified with “’DARKNESS,’ [...], ADI-NIDANA SVABHAVAT”. In the note in SD I, 93n we find an explanation of the word nidāna:
* [...] but in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion; or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity but never named. It is the eternal Karana, the ever-acting Cause.
Here, nidāna is identified with kāraṇa, and with the “force” resulting in cosmic motion. The concept of abstract motion is, together with abstract space and abstract duration, one of the central concepts in the esoteric philosophy presented in The Secret Doctrine. In the Book of Dzyan, this unmanifested aspect behind cosmic motion is symbolised as the great breath, while cosmic motion itself is called the divine breath.
In SD II, 46 we find out some more about kāraṇa, in a quotation from the “Commentary”:
“After the changeless (avikâra) immutable nature (Essence, sadaikarûpa) had awakened and changed (differentiated) into (a state of) causality (avayakta), and from cause (Karana) had become its own discrete effect (vyakta), from invisible it became visible. The smallest of the small (the most atomic of atoms, or aniyâmsam aniyâsam) became one and the many (ekanekárûpa); and producing the Universe produced also the Fourth Loka (our Earth) in the garland of the seven lotuses. The Achyuta then became the Chyuta.*
We see that kāraṇa itself changes into its own effect, which is called vyakta, a term generally indicating that which is manifested, or the manifested universe, but another one of its meanings (as an adjective) is visible, apparent or caused to appear. (Monier-Williams)
In the Viṣṇupurāṇa (VP), in the 1840 translation of Horace H. Wilson, which was regularly consulted by HPB, we find in Book I chapter II page 8, in Wilson’s notes, explanations of the Sanskrit terms from the quotation of the Commentary:
2. This address to Vishńu pursues the notion that he, as the supreme being, is one, whilst he is all: he is Avikára, not subject to change; Sadaikarúpa, one invariable nature: he is the liberator (tára), or he who bears mortals across the ocean of existence: he is both single and manifold (ekánekarúpa): and he is the indiscrete (avyakta) cause of the world, as well as the discrete (vyakta) effect; or the invisible cause, and visible creation.
[...]
4. Ańíyánsam ańíyasám, ‘the most atomic of the atomic;’ alluding to the atomic theory of the Nyáya or logical school.
5. Or Achyuta; a common name of Vishńu, from a, privative, and chyuta, fallen; according to our comment, ‘he who does not perish with created things.’ The Mahábhárata interprets it in one place to mean, ‘he who is not distinct from final emancipation;’ and in another to signify, ‘exempt from decay’. A commentator on the Káśikhańd́a of the Skánda Puráńa explains it, ‘he who never declines (or varies) from his own proper nature.’
What it means that we find these terms here in one page in Wilson’s notes is, I think, open for debate.
In the text of the Viṣṇupurāṇa (VP I.II.1-5) we can try to identify the terms from the quotation of SD II, 46:
| avikâra | avikāra |
| sadaikarûpa | sadaikarūpa |
| avayakta [sic] | avyakta |
| karana | kāraṇa |
| vyakta | vyakta |
| aniyâmsam aniyâsam | aṇīyāṃsamaṇīyasam |
| ekanekárûpa | ekāneka(sva)rūpa |
| achyuta | acyuta |
| chyuta | cyuta |
The idea of the Causeless Cause, or the cause, kāraṇa, becoming its own effect, vyakta, is formulated by Wilson in note 3 on page 8:
The world is therefore not regarded by the Pauranics as an emanation or an illusion, but as consubstantial with its first cause.
Of course much more could be said about this passage in the VP, relating to the stanzas from the Book of Dzyan, an example being that in VP I.II.4, Viṣṇu is called mūlabhūta, the root of the world (Wilson), a term found in stanza II śloka 1 (SD I, 53).
Returning to our theme here, we might turn to another location in the stanzas, in SD I, 107-108, stanza V śloka 2:
2. [...] (a). THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT; [...] RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. [...] TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE AND THE SEVEN BELOW (the world to be). HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE SPARKS (atoms) AND JOINS THEM TOGETHER (c).
In HPB’s extensive commentary to (c) we find (in SD I, 109):
When the “Divine Son” breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and THREE — on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine.
and (in SD I, 110):
By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System.
Combining the phrase “THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT “ from stanza V śloka 2 with this last quote, we must conclude that the dzyu is identical to “the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation”. Dzyu becomes fohat “when the ‘Divine Son’ breaks forth”, i.e. at the moment the universe comes into manifestation, so we can conclude that dzyu is the unmanifested principle which is at the basis of fohat, the (manifested) “propelling force” which “sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution”. This principle is of course kāraṇa, which is, as we have seen, the “force” resulting in cosmic motion, or the principle of abstract motion, in the Book of Dzyan symbolised as the great breath.
- Karana-the-Causeless-Cause-1.pdf (165 kB)
Category: Causeless Cause, Divine Breath, Fohat, Great Breath, Karana, Motion, Nidana, Root of the World, Vyakta | 2 comments
20
March
On the Summary to the First Fundamental Proposition
By Ingmar de Boer on March 20, 2013 at 12:22 am
In the summary in SD I, 16, a clearer idea of is given of the subject of the first fundamental proposition. This proposition is stating an “Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE”. The summary is meant as a clarification of the text in SD I, 14-16 under (a).
The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
(1.) The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.
The Absolute, Parabrahman.
(2.) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, unmanifested Logos, the precursor of the “manifested.” This is the “First Cause,” the “Unconscious” of European Pantheists.
The unmanifested Logos, which is apparently different from the Absolute here. We have called this the First Logos. (see The Three Logoi)
(3.) Spirit-matter, LIFE; the “Spirit of the Universe,” the Purusha and Prakriti, or the second Logos.
Literally the Second Logos.
(4.) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
In our earlier analysis we have identified the Universal World-Soul with the Third Logos.
Confusingly, we found Mahat to correspond to the Second Logos.
The Cosmic Noumenon of Matter is mentioned as “noumenon of matter” in SD I, 84
The expanding and contracting of the Web — i.e., the world stuff or atoms — expresses here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean of that which we may call the noumenon of matter emanated by Swabhavat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms.
The noumenon of matter is the web
In this passage we can safely assume that “universal vibration of atoms” corresponds to “pulsatory movement”, which is apparently the “expanding and contracting of the Web”. What causes this vibration is not entirely clear from the text. Syntactically “which” could refer either to
1. the regular contraction and expansion
2. the infinite and shoreless Ocean
3. that which we may call the noumenon of matter
4. Swabhavat
Logically, it could not be 1, as the cause of vibration could not be itself. From “for it is the regular…” we can again safely conclude that by the “infinite and shoreless Ocean” is meant the Web. It could therefore not be 2, because the Web apparently does not vibrate by itself. Is the noumenon emanated or the matter? The Ocean apparently consists of the “noumenon of matter”. Therefore the Ocean is still unmanifested, and it is the noumenon that is emanated by Swabhavat, not matter. As the noumenon is itself the substance of the Ocean, Swabhavat will be the cause of its vibration. The alternative would be that the noumenon is the cause of vibration, which means that the Web vibrates because of its substance.
If we return to śloka 10 in stanza III:
AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SWABHAVAT
Here Swabhavat is identified with the substance of the web. Because the substance is twofold in itself, the vibration is an inherent quality of the web, as we can see from śloka 11 in stanza II:
IT (the Web) EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE (the Father) IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER (the root of Matter) TOUCHES IT.
This means both solutions 3 and 4 could be acceptable, and consequently the “Cosmic Noumenon of Matter” is the Father-Mother substance of the Web, alternatively Swabhavat. As for now it is unclear to me if this might be related to the Second, or the Third Logos.
The “basis of intelligent operations in and of Nature” might be interpreted either way, but seems closer to our idea of the Third Logos than to the Second.
As for mahabuddhi, we can sum up some other relevant passages here.
1. One location is SD I, 451:
Mahat (or Maha-Buddhi) is, with the Vaishnavas, however, divine mind in active operation, or, as Anaxagoras has it, “an ordering and disposing mind, which was the cause of all things,” — [[Nous o diakosmonte kai panton aitios]].
We identified Anaxagoras’ concept of nous as the Third logos, and also the “divine mind in active operation” is exactly what we have defined as the Third Logos. In this quote, mahat (mahabuddhi) is defined differently, not as the Second Logos but as the Third, apparently following “the Vaishnavas”.
The quote “Nous [estin] ho diakosmon te kai panton aitios” is taken from Plato’s Phaedo, 97c, “νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος“, “it is the mind that arranges and causes all things”, in the translation of Harold North Fowler.
2. A second is SD I, 572:
Esoterically the teaching differs: The divine, purely Adi-Buddhic monad manifests as the universal Buddhi (the Maha-buddhi or Mahat in Hindu philosophies) the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent root of divine intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos.
Here we have mahat (mahabuddhi) as the Second Logos, which is the Logos proper, and HPB’s Anima Mundi.
Mahat is used in different meanings, though it seems to be in a consistent way. Apparently in the summary of the first fundamental proposition, mahat is used conform SD I, 451.
Returning to the structure of the summary, it seems to be
(1) Parabrahman, the Absolute
(2) First Logos
(3) Second Logos
(4) Third Logos
If we try to put this in a diagram, instead of something like
the structure would become something like
Today I consulted the 1893 “Third Revised Edition” of The Secret Doctrine, which – fascinatingly – has a slightly altered summary text, on p. 44 (different page numbering):
(1.) Absoluteness: the Parabrahman of the Vedântins or the One Reality, Sat, [...]
(2.) The First Logos: the impersonal [...]
(3.) The Second Logos: Spirit-Matter [...]
(4.) The Third Logos: Cosmic Ideation [...]
This would mean that the Adyar edition also has this version of the summary, as it is based on the 1893 revised edition. This version of the summary does “afford a clearer idea to the reader”, as opposed to the 1888 summary…
Category: Anima Mundi, Logos, Mahat, Mulaprakriti, Nous, Parabrahman, Svabhavat, World Soul | 1 comment
19
March
Two Aspects of the Absolute
By Ingmar de Boer on March 19, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Studying the first fundamental proposition in The Secret Doctrine, we see that the “Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE” postulated in SD I, 14 is the Rootless Root of “all that was, is, or ever shall be”, Parabrahman, the Absolute.
Two aspects of the Absolute are then described, which are absolute abstract Space and absolute abstract Motion, the latter symbolized in the Book of Dzyan as The Great Breath.
The Great Breath is seen by HPB as precosmic Ideation, while the other aspect of the Absolute is seen as precosmic root-substance (Mūlaprakṛti). Both these are underlying manifested Consciousness and manifested Matter respectively, or Spirit and Matter, Subjectivity and Objectivity in the manifested universe.
These two aspects are obviously referred to in the last sentence of the passage, after the summary, “The ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe.”
Mūlaprakṛti: the Veil over Parabrahman
In this context HPB refers to ‘Mr. Subba Row’s four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, “Theosophist,” February, 1887.’
In the first of these lectures, on page 304 of The Theosophist Vol. VIII, we find some explanation about the relationship between Parabrahman and Mūlaprakṛti:
From its objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mulaprakriti.
The “it” in this sentence is the ego “having an objective consciousness of its own”.
Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it. Parabrahman cannot be seen as it is.
What is said here, is that Parabrahman is the Absolute, and Mūlaprakṛti is an aspect of it, only in the sense that we cannot see more of it than that. Mūlaprakṛti is not a component, “aspect” or principle in itself, either separate from or united with Parabrahman. This is different from HPB’s interpretation in her description of the first fundamental principle, as two aspects, pre-Cosmic Ideation and pre-Cosmic Substance.
On page 305 of The Theosophist Vol. VIII, “the highest Trinity that we are capable of understanding” is mentioned, being Mūlaprakṛti, Īśvara (the Logos) and the “conscious energy of he Logos” (i.e. HPB’s fohat). This is the trinity we have defined as the First, Second and Third Logos. (see The Three Logoi)
In SD I, 14 we find:
Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE — BE-NESS — symbolised by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity.
On page 305, Subba Row describes the “conscious energy of he Logos” as the “Holy Ghost of the Christians”. This confirms that Subba Row thought of this trinity as the “theological Trinity”.
Although HBP does not give any indication which trinity she is referring to, from these correspondences between her description and Subba Row’s, we can assume that she refers to the Trinity that we have defined as the First, Second and Third Logos, which she sees as “symbolising” the “metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE — BE-NESS”, which is the “Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE” postulated in SD I, 14.
This same problem appears in SD I, 15:
Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, [...]
“This” seems to refer to:
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), [...]
Again the only possible interpretation here seems the Absolute itself, together with its two aspects. A more fitting interpretation would be though, that the Root is the Parabrahman which she sees as a “metaphysical triad” in itself, or the triad “symbolising” Parabrahman.
Category: Logos, Mulaprakriti, Parabrahman | 2 comments
19
March
The footnote in SD I, 14-15
By Ingmar de Boer on at 6:55 pm
In SD I, 14 we find
Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the “First Cause,”* which the Occultist more logically derives from the “Causeless Cause,” the “Eternal,” and the “Unknowable,” [...]
where the asterisk refers to the following footnote:
* The “first” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first brought forth, the first in time, space, and rank” — and therefore finite and conditioned. The “first” cannot be the absolute, for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the “Causeless One Cause,” the “Rootless Root,” and limits the “First Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.
The “First Cause” is the manifested Logos, the Logos proper, “in the sense Plato gives to this term”, which is the Second Logos, as we have shown earlier. (See The Three Logoi)
So the “Abstract All”, the “Causeless One Cause”, the “Rootless Root” is the unmanifested Logos, which we have called the First Logos.
Category: First Cause, Logos, Rootless Root | No comments yet
29
December
Is the Book of Dzyan Based on the Chinese Yu-Fu-King?
By David Reigle on December 29, 2012 at 6:03 am
Prof. Giovanni Hoffman wrote in 1909 that the origin of the Book of Dzyan is the Chinese Taoist book entitled Yu-Fu-King, or The Book of Secret Correspondences (The Theosophist, vol. 31, Oct. 1909, pp. 64-65, attached as Book of Dzyan Giovanni Hoffman). There is a typographical error in the first syllable of this title. As given by James Legge in vol. 40 of the Sacred Books of the East, The Texts of Taoism, Part II, 1891, this title is Yin Fu King, or Classic of the Harmony of the Seen and the Unseen. In the Wade-Giles system of Chinese transcription, this title is Yin-fu Ching. In the currently used pinyin system it is Yinfujing, and the fuller title is Huangdi Yinfujing.
A couple of months ago a new HPB biography came out, Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality, by Gary Lachman. It mentions this idea on p. 257, where we read: “The sinologist Giovanni Hoffmann believed that the ‘Stanzas of Dzyan’ originate in the Book of the Secret Correspondences (Yu-Fu-King) of the fourth-century Taoist Ly-Tzyn.” This is referenced in a note to Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s 1996 book, New Age Religion and Western Culture, p. 453. Turning to that book, we there read:
“Karl R. H. Frick has called attention to an article by the sinologist Giovanni Hoffmann, who points to the teaching of a Taoist of the fourth century named Ly-tzyn, or Dzyan in Tibetan. His book, Yu-Fu-King or “The Book of Secret Correspondences”, was published in Florence in 1878. It seems probable that Blavatsky knew this book but incorrectly interpreted its contents as Vedic. If these suggestions are correct, Isis Unveiled was inspired by a kabbalistic source transmitted to Blavatsky in the context of Knorr von Rosenroth’s Christian kabbalah; and The Secret Doctrine by a Taoist treatise interpreted as Vedic.”
Dr. Hanegraaff is a leading scholar of western esoteric traditions, so he approached his subject from this perspective. He is not a Vedic scholar or a scholar of Chinese. I, too, am not a scholar of Chinese, but I had been studying Sanskrit for several years when I read the 1909 article from The Theosophist in the mid-1980s. That was sufficient for me to discount Prof. Hoffman’s statement made therein about Blavatsky and the Book of Dzyan that: “She has therefore the merit of having re-arranged the shapeless mass of the aphorisms of Dzyan or Tsian; but the doctrine exposed in these applies entirely to the Lao-ze School, and in no wise to the vedic, as she wished it to be believed.” So I filed the article away. Now that some attention has been called to it, I have gotten it out and scanned it and posted it here. Incidentally, the book published in Florence in 1878 is not the Yu-Fu-King or Yin Fu King as such, but rather is Il Buddha, Confucio e Lao-tse: notizie e studii intorno alle religioni dell’Asia Orientale, by Carlo Puini.
There are several English translations of the Yu-Fu-King or Yin Fu King or Yinfujing available today, and sufficient information on these is given in the Wikipedia entry, Huangdi Yinfujing. The 1891 translation by James Legge is now in the public domain and is available online. Since this is a very short text, I have here pasted in the entire translation. Readers can judge for themselves whether they think the Book of Dzyan is based on this Chinese Taoist text. I hardly need to call the attention of readers of this blog to the many Sanskrit parallels to the Book of Dzyan that have been here discussed. I would, however, like to add a word of appreciation to both Gary Lachman and Dr. Wouter Hanegraaff for their helpful and non-hostile approach to the work of Blavatsky.
Yin Fû King, or ‘Classic of the Harmony of the Seen and the Unseen.’
Ch. 1. 1. If one observes the Way of Heaven 1, and maintains Its doings (as his own) 2, all that he has to do is accomplished.
p. 258
2. To Heaven there belong the five (mutual) foes 1, and he who sees them (and understands their operation) apprehends how they produce prosperity. The same five foes are in the mind of man, and when he can set them in action after the manner of Heaven, all space and time are at his disposal, and all things receive their transformations from his person 2.
p. 259
3. The nature of Heaven belongs (also) to Man; the mind of Man is a spring (of power). When the Way of Heaven is established, the (Course of) Man is thereby determined. 1
4. When Heaven puts forth its power of putting to death, the stars and constellations lie hidden in darkness. When Earth puts forth its power of putting to death, dragons and serpents appear on the dry ground. When Man puts forth his power of putting to death, Heaven and Earth resume their (proper course). When Heaven and Man exert their powers in concert, all transformations have their commencements determined. 4_1
5. The nature (of man) is here clever and there stupid; and the one of these qualities may lie hidden in the other. The abuse of the nine apertures is (chiefly) in the three most important, which may be now in movement and now at rest. When fire arises in wood, the evil, having once begun, is sure to go on to the destruction of the wood. When
p. 260
calamity arises in a state, if thereafter movement ensue, it is sure to go to ruin.
When one conducts the work of culture and refining wisely we call him a Sage. 5_1
2. 1. For Heaven now to give life and now to take it away is the method of the Tâo. Heaven and Earth are the despoilers of all things; all things are the despoilers of Man; and Man is the despoiler of all things. When the three despoilers act as they ought to do, as the three Powers, they are at rest. Hence it is said, ‘During the time of nourishment, all the members are properly regulated; when the springs of motion come into play, all transformations quietly take place.’ 1_1
2. Men know the mysteriousness of the Spirit’s (action), but they do not know how what is not Spiritual comes to be so. The sun and moon have their definite times, and their exact measures as
p. 261
large and small. The service of the sages hereupon arises, and the spiritual intelligence becomes apparent. 2_1
3. The spring by which the despoilers are moved is invisible and unknown to all under the sky. When the superior man has got it, he strengthens his body by it; when the small man has got it, he makes light of his life. 3_1
3. 1. The blind hear well, and the deaf see well. To derive all that is advantageous from one source is ten times better than the employment of a host; to do this thrice in a day and night is a myriad times better. 1_1
2. The mind is quickened (to activity) by (external) things, and dies through (excessive pursuit of) them. The spring (of the mind’s activity) is in the eyes.
Heaven has no (special feeling of) kindness, but so it is that the greatest kindness comes from It.
p. 262
The crash of thunder and the blustering wind both come without design. 2_1
3. Perfect enjoyment is the overflowing satisfaction of the nature. Perfect stillness is the entire disinterestedness of it. When Heaven seems to be most wrapt up in Itself, Its operation is universal in its character. 3_1
4. It is by its breath that we control whatever creature we grasp. Life is the root of death, and death is the root of life. Kindness springs from injury, and injury springs from kindness. He who sinks himself in water or enters amidst fire brings destruction on himself. 4_1
p. 263
5. The stupid man by studying the phenomena and laws of heaven and earth becomes sage; I by studying their times and productions become intelligent. He in his stupidity is perplexed about sageness; I in my freedom from stupidity am the same. He considers his sageness as being an extraordinary attainment; I do not consider mine so. 5_1
6. The method of spontaneity proceeds in stillness, and so it was that heaven, earth, and all things were produced. The method of heaven and earth proceeds gently and gradually, and thus it is that the Yin and Yang overcome (each other by turns). The one takes the place of the other, and so change and transformation proceed accordingly. 6_1
7. Therefore the sages, knowing that the method of spontaneity cannot be resisted, take action accordingly and regulate it (for the purpose of culture). The way of perfect stillness cannot be subjected to numerical calculations; but it would seem that there
p. 264
is a wonderful machinery, by which all the heavenly bodies are produced, the eight diagrams, and the sexagenary cycle; spirit-like springs of power, and hidden ghostlinesses; the arts of the Yin and Yang in the victories of the one over the other:–all these come brightly forward into visibility. 7_1
Category: Book of Dzyan | 1 comment
19
December
Surya Siddhanta & Siddhanta Shiromani
By Jacques Mahnich on December 19, 2012 at 5:16 pm
An english translation of the SURYA-SIDDHANTA has been uploaded on this site library under the REFERENCES index, INDIAN TRADITIONS header : http://prajnaquest.fr/downloads/BookofDzyan/IndianTraditions/Others/Surya%20Siddhanta.pdf
It was translated from the sanskrit by Pandit Bâpû Deva Shâstri, and published in 1860 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
It is bounded with a translation of the SIDDHANTA SHIROMANI, translated by Lancelot Wilkinson and Pandit Bâpû Deva Shâstri, published in 1861.
In his postscript of the SURYA-SIDDHANTA, Bâpû Deva explained that eighteen Siddhanta were written, of which only four were procurable during his time (SÛRYA-Sid., BRAHMA-Sid., SOMA Sid., and VASISHTA-Sid.). The SURYA Sid. is supposed to be the oldest.
Page 108 (SIDDHANTA SHIROMANI) gives another calculation for the elapsed-time-since-the-beginning-of-this-kalpa :
“Of the present KALPA, 6 Manus with their 7 Sandhis, 27 Yugas ans their 3 Yuga’Nghri (Krita, Treta, and Dwapara), and 3179 sidereal years of the fourth Yuga’Nghri of the 28th Yuga of the 7th Manu, that is to say 1,972,947,179 sidereal years have elapsed from the beginning of the present Kalpa to the commencement of the Sa’liwa’hana era.”
Note : Saliwahana was a king of southern India, born in 78 A.D., starting the “Saka Era”.
Compared to H.P.B. number given in the S.D (vol II, page 68), there is a gross difference of 1,972,947,179 – 1,955,884,687 = 17,062,492 years for the elapsed time since the beginning of cosmic evolution.
Category: Occult Chronology | 1 comment
23
November
Cosmogenesis according to the Surya-siddhanta
By David Reigle on November 23, 2012 at 4:24 am
This is the title of an article published in The Theosophist, vol. 15, 1893, by N. Ramanuja Charri. Although he numbers the verses here translated by him starting with number 1, these verses come from chapter 12 of the Sūrya-siddhānta, where they are numbered 12-32. The file is here attached: “Cosmogenesis according to the Sūrya-siddhānta.”
Category: Cosmogenesis | No comments yet
4
November
Book of Dzyan, Stanza I, Michael Lewis translation/interpretation
By David Reigle on November 4, 2012 at 4:31 am
…..IN THE MATRIX OF THE PRIMORDIAL DEITIES
“…in the night of Sun-chan.”
- Michael Lewis and Ken Small
Blavatskys’ final version of Stanza one and also her Tibetan phonetic source is indented from the original in the Secret Doctrine Proem, p. 23. The earlier version from Blavatsky’s 1886 manuscript is given after the later one under sub a.
(Michael Lewis translation / interpretation and comments follow in bold italics and plain type. I have made the arrangement and editing. K.S.)
1. THE ETERNAL PARENT WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES
1a. THE Eternal Mother (space) wrapped in her ever invisible robes (cosmic prenebular matter had slumbered for seven Eternities,
Tho-ag in zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo
The Potential of Spatiality as the Fundamental Cause [or Causal Ground] slept for seven cycles
Tho-ok = the ‘boundless all’ equivalent to Parmenides apeiron = boundless
Tho = above and ok = below (see example of this usage in the Throma sadhana). Tibetan often makes use of two extremes to create a definition, in this case ‘above/below’ giving the meaning of ‘spatiality’.
Zhi gyu = uncaused cause or fundamental cause ( Zhi-ma would negate this)
2. TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.
2a. (identical rendering)
Zodmanas zhiba.
Patiently the One Mind peacefully abided
Zhipa = patient Manas = mind in Sanskrit Yeh Zhi = primordial ground or original foundation = Dharmakaya. This would be ‘aja-sakti, the unborn, a Dzogchen term which Blavatsky references in her article on ‘Tibetan Teachings’ give ref.)
All Nyug bosom.
All was in [the bosom of] the Ultimate Natural State.
Nyug is the same as Nyuk. The nyuk that David Reigle is referring to is spelled snug and means quite correctly duration. However gnyug(ma) which is usually short for gnyug ma’i sems means the genuine innate, interrupted ongoing, perpetual, original natural state or nature or the authentic original untouched nature which is virtually synonymous with Dzogchen. It is said to be ‘ma sam gur pay nur lay day’ = inconceivable and ineffable and cannot be an object of intellective consciousness. As Joseph Campbell says “no tongue can soil it with a name.” The secondary meaning is of continuously residing or indigenous = Sanskrit nija. ‘Nyuk me sems’ is a synonym for rigpa, the uncontrived untouched natural complete awareness spontaneously present. The original, indigenous ‘resident’ of the universe, the mandala of Samantabhadra. The ‘ma’ in gnyugma’ = the motherly underlying empty essence and refers directly to the prajna paramita – the motherly wisdom of the Buddhas. Blavatsky conveys this by her use of the word ‘bosom’ as a poetic metaphor to convey the correct feeling tone for this meaning.
- 3. UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI TO CONTAIN IT.
3a. Time was not, for there were no Dhyan Chohans to contain (hence to manifest) it.
Konch-hog not;
There was no separate existence of Deity;
Konchok – when the Moravian missionaries translated the Christian Bible into Tibetan they used the word ‘Konchog’ when translating ‘God’. It could be translated as ‘supreme superiors’.
Regarding ‘AH-HI’, the expression ‘Ah-hay’ = ‘hadewa’ which means the awe surprised wondering awareness, uncontained. It is also similar to ‘ATI’
Thyan-Kam not;
Everything was non-dual and was absorbed in the primordial state;
[alternative] Nor was there meditative absorption with formal substratum
[alternative] The one elemnt was absorbed in the primordial state.
Tian Kham = Dhyan = meditative absorption and Kham = formal substratum
or Thyan-Kam = element.
Lha-Chohan not;
There were no gods or exalted ones;
Lha = gods and Chohan = exalted ones
- 4. THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS WERE NOT. THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM.
4a. (identical rendering)
Tenbrel Chugnyi not;
There was no twelvefold chain of interdependent arising
- 5. DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL, FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL, AND HIS PILGRIMAGE THEREON.
5a. (Identical rendering with only without the ending phrase “and his pilgrimage thereon.” is not in this earlier version.)
Dharmakaya ceased;
Dharmakaya ceased
Cho lon yang me = Dharmakaya also was not
“A very profound view. I don’t believe this is discussed or elucidated anywhere as a philosophical concept in Buddhist philosophy. Perhaps in Dzogchen, but I do not know of any reference at this time either translated or in Tibetan.” (M.L.)
Tgenchang not become;
Anything having specific characteristics had not yet become.
Tgenchang could be rgyen chang = ornament holder. The ‘T’ is not a correct prefix.
Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj
The blazing forth of experience and its ground in shear essentiality was what was.
Barnang = blazing appearance. Nang = the same meaning as Pleroma in Greek = ‘lighting up’ and implying objects of cognition.
6. THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, AND THE UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA, TO BE OUTBREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS.
6a. The seven sublime Truths, and the Seven Srutis—had ceased to be, and the Universe, the Son of Necessity, was plunged in Paranishpanna (absolute perfecton, Paranivwana, which is Jong-grub)—to be outbreathed by that which is, and yet is not. Naught was,
Alone Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan
The potential of spatiality alone held existence in the night of Sun-chan
[or alternative rendering]
The matrix from which would arise the primal deities alone held existence
Sun – chun – according to Chandra Das quoting de Koros, Sun-chun means ancestral spirit or tutelary deities and chan means possessed of. It would be useful to look for this term in a Zhang-Zhung dictionary.
and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna)
and everything was already accomplished there.
Category: Book of Dzyan | 2 comments
2
November
The Relevance of Sacred Cosmogony
By David Reigle on November 2, 2012 at 4:46 am
The late Prof. F. B. J. Kuiper thought that cosmogony is “The Basic Concept of Vedic Religion.” In his article of that title, he tells why (History of Religions, vol. 15, 1975, pp. 107-108):
“The key to an insight into this religion is, I think, to be found in its cosmogony, that is, the myth which tells us how, in primordial time, this world came into existence. This myth owed its fundamental importance to the fact that every decisive moment in life was considered a repetition of the primeval process. Therefore the myth was not merely a tale of things that had happened long ago, nor was it a rational explanation of how this world had become what it is now. The origin of the world constituted the sacred prototype of how, in an endlessly repeated process, life and this world renewed themselves again and again.”
Category: Cosmogenesis | No comments yet
19
September
The Doctrine of ‘Nature Origination’ in the Korean Ch’an Buddhism of Chinul and Li T’ung Hsuan’s ‘Hua-yen’ – by Ken Small
By admin on September 19, 2012 at 9:05 pm
[ ADMIN Note : The following post was provided par Ken Small as an introduction to a new discovery which is of much interest for the students of the Theosophical teachings on Svabhava. This is opening a new area for research. Thanks to him for sharing this insight with us.]
One of the most important and challenging concepts in Blavatsky’s ‘Secret Doctrine’ is the doctrine of ‘svabhava’ or ‘svabhavat’.
David Reigle in his opening to his chapter on ‘The Doctrine of Svabhava’ makes reference to works “… found in the Bodhisattva-bhumi, attributed to Asanga … or to Maitreya… . This text in its tattvartha or “reality” chapter speaks of the inexpressible svabhavata (nature or essence) of all the elements of existence … . Being beyond the range of speech, this absolute (paramarthika) svabhava of all dharmas is accessible only to non-conceptual wisdom (nirvikalpa-jnana)…” (BSB, p.106 – Reigle)
Reigle continues in this chapter of his book (Blavatsky’s Secret Books p.106) linking this svabhava doctrine to the tathagata-garbha doctrine found in Maitreya’s Ratna-gotra-vibhaga, and questions on svabhava, anatman and sunyata are delved into and a process of clarifying their relation to Blavatsky’s. A question that frequently arises is how these ideas, so harmonious with the Theosophical view, continue in living traditions today?
The Korean Ch’an (kor. Son) schools descending from the 12th century founding teacher Chinul remain currently active and in practice. Many scholars and practicioners today consider him the founder of the unified Son (Ch’an) / Kyo (doctrinal Buddhism) Korean Buddhism of today. Chinul was a unique figure that merged together both Ch’an and Hua-yen view into one school of thought and practice. While this is a large subject to cover that would require a book length text, a few points are here quoted that appear to relate closely to subjects in Blavatsky’s perennial Theosophy.
So, as I was recently studying the schools and writings that are sourced in the Avatamsaka sutra (see Cleary’s translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra and his introductory notes), I came across this Korean (Chinul) branch that appears to follow this unique approach to ‘nature’ or ‘svabhava’. It is from the Hua yen tradition through a famous layman, named Li T’ung-hsuan (635 CE – 730). His ideas of ‘nature origination’ find currency again in the Korean Ch’an/Hua yen teacher Chinul* (1158-1210). Here appears an approach to svabhava that appears similar to Blavatsky’s and is rare in Buddhism. I have noted here a few other points of potential confluence between Hua-yen and Blavatsky, including within Hua-yen the following: on the subject of universality and particularity, the one and the many, the nature of time, the identity of mutual interpenetration and identity, the One Mind, microcosm and macrocosm, equivalence of Buddha nature and emptiness, etc. All this is open for new understandings and exploration. It is of interest to also note that within Hua-yen is a unified view of sunyata and the tathagatagarbha doctrines. In what follows I will give some brief quotes from translated sources and scholarly commentary about this aspect of Hua-yen tradition. This is no attempt at even an overview of a very vast and complex subject within Hua-yen, but only to give some very introductory ideas and points of reference of areas for its further study with Blavatsky’s Theosophic perennialism.
Also, always the cautionary note, that it is often rather challenging to get the source terms correctly aligned, when going from Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Korean and then to the often barely adequate English, where one word may be used for very different ideas, or several words interchangeably for the same Buddhist term. So what follows is very preliminary.
The Korean ‘song’ or ‘songgi’ or Chinese ‘hsing-chi’ for the Sanskrit svabhava (see Odin p. 63) is translated into English as ‘nature’. (I have added some areas in bold for emphasis)
Buswell gives the source for ‘nature’ as:
“prakriti, svabhava: The unchanging, absolute nature of all dharmas; contrasted with characteristics.” (CWC – Buswell p.400)
Regarding ‘nature origination’:
Chinul discovered the philosophical basis for such correlated doctrines as the primacy of faith, the primordial identification of sentient beings with Buddha, and sudden awakening, in Li T’ung-hsuan’s radical and unorthodox doctrine of nature origination. (Chi. Hsing-chi; Kor. Yuan-chi) (PMHYB p. 63 Odin)
Chinul emphasizes that whereas conditioned origination articulates reality from the perspective of multiple phenomena (shih) or dynamic function (yung), nature origination articulates reality from the perspective of principle (li) or universal essence (t’i). Where as conditioned origination requires an intermediary intellectual framework of interpenetration and mutual fusion to identify principle (li) with phenomena (shih), the more radical doctrine of nature-origination, instead emphasizes the non-production or non-origination of phenomena and requires no intermediary conceptual apparatus. (PMHYB p. 64 Odin)
The usual interpretation of faith as a belief in the possibility of becoming a Buddha through the step by step procedure of faith, understanding, practice and authentication was changed into the new idea that faith is the resolute conviction that one is already identified with Buddhahood. (PMHYB p. 61 Odin quoting Shim)
Regarding the ethic of Hua-yen, Cleary comments:
The Hua-yen doctrine shows the entire cosmos as one single nexus of conditions in which everything simultaneously depends on, and is depended on by, everything else. Seen in this light, then, everything affects and is affected by, more or less immediately or remotely, everything else; just as this is true of every system of relationships, so is it true of the totality of existence.… The accord of this view with the experience of modern science is obvious, and it seems to be an appropriate basis upon which the question of the relation of science and bioethics – an issue of contemporary concern – may be resolved. … The ethic of the Hua-yen teaching is based on this fundamental theme of universal interdependenc.
(EITI p. 3 Cleary)
Francis Cook states:
Hua-yen is certainly a type of pan-Buddhism. (HYB p.92, Cook)
We might, as a matter of fact, characterize Hua-yen as a species of tathagatagarbha thought which is in turn based on the doctrine of emptiness. Even this is not the whole truth, for it tends to distort the relationship between the two doctrines. Ultimately, sunyata and tathagatagarbha are alternate expressions for the same reality.
(HYB, p.36 Cook)
All men possess a point of numinous brightness which is still like space and pervades every region. When contrasted with mundane affairs, it is expediently called the noumenal nature. When contrasted with formations and consciousness, it is provisionally called the true mind. (CWC p. 181 Buswell quoting Chinul)
Odin comments on unity and multiplicity in Hua-yen:
The dialectical interpenetration of unity and multiplicity or subjectivity and objectivety in Hua-yen Buddhism essentially represents a microcosmic-macrocosmic model of reality wherein each dharma or event becomes a living mirror of the totality, reflecting all other dharmas—past, present, and future alike—from its own standpoint in nature … not unlike Leibniz’s theory of “monads” or perspectival mirrors in the West. (PMHYB p. 16 Odin)
Keel quoting Tsung-mi:
The original Essence of True Mind has two kinds of function: One is the original function of Self Nature, and the other is the function according to external conditions. If we compare them to copper, the quality of copper is its Essence of
Self-Nature, its brightness the function of Self-Nature, and the reflections appearing on it the Functions according to conditions … Analogously, the constant quiescence of Mind is the Essence of Self-Nature, the constant knowing of Mind the function of Self-Nature, and to talk, to speak, and to distinguish are the Functions according to conditions. (TFKST p.87 Keel)
Nature giving rise to Characteristics (Phenomena, Functions) is called in Hua-yen doctrine Origination-by-Nature (songgi) as distinguished from Origination-by-condition (yongi). To see a phenomena from the vantage point of Origination-by-Nature means to understand it in its phenomenality, in its conditioned nature, and thus in its Emptiness. So long as a thing is seen in its Nature of Origination-by-Condition, it is Origination-by-nature at the same time. Further, so long as one sees a phenomena in this way, it is seen as a Function of the Essence of True Mind. Thus, for Chinul, the logic of Origination-by-Nature underlies the truth of the mysterious Function of True Mind. Every phenomena, seen in this way, no longer becomes an obstruction to our spiritual freedom but is affirmed plainly as it is. (TFKST p.84-85 Keel)
Buswell clarifying some implications of ‘nature origination’:
Chinul’s acceptance of the doctrine of nature origination (songgi) rather than the conditioned origination of the dharmadhatu stems from the formers superiority in the development of practice. While conditioned origination might be theoretically valid, its efficacy from a pragmatic standpoint is limited. The emphasis on nature origination had important implications for Chinul’s synthesis of the theoretical views of the Hwaom [Hua-yen] and Son [Ch’an] schools …
(CWC pp. 232-233 Buswell)
This is only a brief taste of a few key points in the ideas of Chinul and Li T’ung Hsuan. It is to be hoped that gradually as more of the writings of the Hua-yen and Korean Son (Ch’an) teachers become translated, more light on these ideas will be possible. Certainly, it can be said, that the harmonious confluences between Hua-yen and Blavatsky’s Theosophic perennialism point to a significant and dynamic confluence of views useful to deepening our study and practice in both arenas.
*The Avatamsaka’s influence continued through out the later course of Ch’an history, and is especially noticeable in the thought of Chinul (1158-1210), who during the Koryo Dynasty (937-1392) revivied the declining fortunes of the Ch’an school in Korea. Chinul was profoundly influenced by Tsung-mi … Another important influence on chnul was that of Li T’ung-hsuan (635-730), also an important Hua-yen figure. The Avatamsaka’s influence on Ch’an has been such that it has even been suggested that Ch’an is the practical expression of the profound and comprehensive teaching of the Avatamsaka.
(MTBAAS p.20 Cheng Chien Bhikshu)
References referred to and recommended for further study:
Buswell, Robert E. – The Collected Works of Chinul
Cheng Chien Bhikshu – Manifestation of the Tathagata: Buddhahood According to the Avatamsaka Sutra
Cleary, Thomas – Entry into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism
Cleary, Thomas – The Avatamsaka Sutra
Cook, Francis H. – Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra
Keel, Hee-Sung – Chinul:The Founder of the Korean Son [Ch’an] Tradition
Odin, Steve – Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism
Reigle, David and Nancy – Blavatsky’s Secret Books
Category: Five Books of Maitreya, Svabhavat | 2 comments
29
August
More on the Tiru Ganita Panchanga
By David Reigle on August 29, 2012 at 10:51 pm
Thanks once again to the efforts of Dr. N. C. Ramanujachary, we now have the data from the 1879-1880 Tiru Ganita Panchanga. This allows us to correct two typographical errors in the data given from the 1880-1881 issue (16645009981 for 1664500981, and 1972948980 for 1972948981), which in turn allowed us to correct a typographical error in the data given from the 1884-1885 issue (1955884687 for 1955884987) as copied by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. All this data from three different issues enables us to eliminate the typographical error factor: the eighteen million years figure is not a mistake. Moreover, since this figure increases rather than decreases, it must in fact be the elapsed years of the Vaivasvata manvantara as stated, rather than the years remaining of the Vaivasvata manvantara lacking one digit, as can be calculated from the extant Sūrya-siddhānta. Since the eighteen million years figure cannot be derived in any known manner from the data given in the extant Sūrya-siddhānta, we are left with only one conclusion. The compiler of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga used a manuscript of the Sūrya-siddhānta that had additional verses in chapter one giving the data necessary to make this calculation.
At the time the Tiru Ganita Panchanga was first published, 1869-1870, there was only one printed edition of the Sūrya-siddhānta. It was published in 1859 in Calcutta (see May 15 posting), far from Madras. Astronomers in India then routinely used their own manuscript copies of texts such as the Sūrya-siddhānta. We must therefore assume that a fuller manuscript of the Sūrya-siddhānta exists in south India. Perhaps it still remains with the descendants of the compiler of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga.
Here is the data from the 1879-1880 Tiru Ganita Panchanga, kindly supplied by Dr. Ramanujachary in his email reply to me dated Aug. 29, 2012:
I had occasion to visit the Adyar Library on this errand today.
Obtained a copy of the first page giving figures.
Yes, your two corrections of years are validated.
——————————————————————————–
The translated version of the page is as below:
Almanac for the year PRAMADI,
corresponding to Kaliyuga year 4981; and English year 1879-80
The figures are in accordance with SURYASIDDHANTA.
years that passed in Brahmanah kalpa: 1972948980
years that passed after Srishti(Manifestation); 1955884980
years that passed after SWAYAMBHAVU: 1664500980
years that pased in VAIVASWATA : 18618720
Kali age: 4981
Vikrama Satabda: 1937
Salivahanasak: 1802
Kollamandu: 1054-55
English: 1879-80
Hijari: 1296-97
Phasali: 1288-89
Drik Ganita year: 11
Category: Occult Chronology | No comments yet
4
August
The Sūrya-siddhānta on Yugas, Manvantaras, and Kalpas
By David Reigle on August 4, 2012 at 3:04 am
As can easily be seen from the sources mentioned in the May 15 posting on the Sūrya-siddhānta, the information on yugas, manvantaras, and kalpas in the Sūrya-siddhānta is found in chapter 1, verses 15-24, and 45-47 (or 44-46 in the Sanskrit edition with the commentary by Parameśvara). There are adequate English translations, by Rev. Ebenezer Burgess (1860), by Bāpū Deva Śāstrī (1861), and by Bimalā Prasāda Siddhānta Sarasvatī (from Sanskrit to Bengali,1894 or 1896, and from Bengali to English, 2007). Nonetheless, these verses are here given in Sanskrit and English translation, primarily for convenience of reference. Unless the compiler of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga had access to a more complete manuscript of the Sūrya-siddhānta, this is the data on which the figures for the elapsed years of various epochs given at its beginning would have been based.
The Sanskrit text given here is based primarily on the 1957 edition of the Sūryasiddhānta by Kripa Shankar Shukla with the Sanskrit commentary by Parameśvara (1432 C.E.), in comparison with the 1859 edition by Fitzedward Hall with the Sanskrit commentary by Raṅganātha (1603 C.E.). I have also compared the 1871, 1891, and 1911 editions, and the 1991 edition by Śrīcandra Pāṇḍeya with the Sanskrit commentary by Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa (born 1618 C.E.). Shukla’s edition gives in footnotes variant readings from the text as found with the Sanskrit commentaries by Mallikārjuna Sūri (1178 C.E.), Yallaya (1472 C.E.), and Rāmakṛṣṇa Ārādhya (1472 C.E.). Shukla also consulted the commentaries by Bhūdhara (1572 C.E.) and Tamma Yajvā (1599 C.E.) for questionable readings. The fact that all these major commentaries were used by Shukla for his edition does not leave a very high probability that a more complete manuscript, having additional verses here, was available to the compiler of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga.
When putting the Sanskrit into roman script I have divided the words with spaces and hyphens as much as possible. Also I have made my English translation fairly literal, so that the Sanskrit can more easily be followed. There seems to be no possibility of deriving a figure of eighteen million years for the age of the Vaivasvata manvantara from this data, and this is all that can be found on this topic in the extant Sūrya-siddhānta.
Sūrya-siddhānta, chapter 1
tad-dvādaśa-sahasrāṇi catur-yugam udāhṛtam |
sūryābda-saṅkhyayā dvi-tri-sāgarair ayutāhataiḥ || 15 ||
sandhyā-sandhyāṃśa-sahitaṃ vijñeyaṃ tac catur-yugam |
kṛtādīnāṃ vyavastheyaṃ dharma-pāda-vyavasthayā || 16 ||
15-16. Twelve thousand of those [divine years, divyaṃ varṣam] are called a fourfold yuga (age). By the count of solar years, that fourfold yuga together with its [opening] sandhi period and [closing] sandhi period is to be understood as four hundred and thirty-two multiplied by ten thousand [i.e., 4,320,000]. This fixed limit of the kṛta and other [yugas] is by way of the fixed limit of the legs of dharma (righteousness).
Notes: fourfold yuga, consisting of the kṛta, tretā, dvāpara and kali yugas; sandhi or sandhyā = “junction, interval, twilight”; four hundred and thirty-two, dvi-tri-sāgara = “two three ocean,” where ocean is a word-number standing for “four,” and the whole number is to be read backwards.
yugasya daśamo bhāgaś catus-tri-dvy-eka-saṅguṇaḥ |
kramāt kṛta-yugādīnāṃ ṣaṣṭho ’ṃśaḥ sandhyayoḥ svakaḥ || 17 ||
17. The tenth part of a yuga [i.e., 432,000] multiplied by four, three, two, and one in sequence [is the length] of the kṛta and other yugas. Their own sixth part [is the length] of the two sandhi periods [combined].
yugānāṃ saptatiḥ saikā manvantaram ihocyate |
kṛtābda-saṅkhyā tasyānte sandhiḥ prokto jala-plavaḥ || 18 ||
18. Seventy plus one yugas are here called a manvantara. At the end of it is said to be a sandhi period having the number of years of a kṛta [yuga]. It is an inundation by water.
sa-sandhayas te manavaḥ kalpe jñeyāś caturdaśa |
kṛta-pramāṇaḥ kalpādau sandhiḥ pañcadaśaḥ smṛtaḥ || 19 ||
19. Those manus together with the sandhi periods are to be understood to be fourteen in a kalpa (eon). At the beginning of a kalpa is recollected to be a fifteenth sandhi period having the measure of a kṛta [yuga].
itthaṃ yuga-sahasreṇa bhūta-saṃhāra-kārakaḥ |
kalpo brāhmam ahaḥ proktaṃ śarvarī tasya tāvatī || 20 ||
20. Thus a kalpa, with a thousand yugas, bringing about the destruction of beings, is said to be a day of Brahmā. His night is of the same extent.
param āyuḥ śataṃ tasya tayāhorātra-saṅkhyayā |
āyuṣo ’rdham itaṃ tasya śeṣāt kalpo ’yam ādimaḥ || 21 ||
21. His complete life is a hundred [divine years] by this count of days and nights. Half of his life has passed. Of the remainder, this is the first kalpa.
Note: the reading śeṣāt kalpo, found in the edition with the commentary by Parameśvara (and read in the three other commentaries cited in the footnotes), is preferable to the reading śeṣa-kalpo, found in the editions with the commentary by Raṅganātha.
kalpād asmāc ca manavaḥ ṣaḍ vyatītāḥ sa-sandhayaḥ |
vaivasvatasya ca manor yugānāṃ tri-ghano gataḥ || 22 ||
22. Of this kalpa six manus have passed with their sandhi periods. Of the Vaivasvata manu, three cubed [i.e., 27] yugas have passed.
aṣṭāviṃsād yugād asmād yātam etat kṛtaṃ yugam |
ataḥ kālaṃ prasaṅkhyāya saṅkhyām ekatra piṇḍayet || 23 ||
23. Of this twenty-eighth yuga, this kṛta yuga has passed. For calculating time after this, one should combine into one the number.
graha-rkṣa-deva-daityādi sṛjato ’sya carācaram |
kṛtādri-vedā divyābdāḥ śata-ghnā vedhaso gatāḥ || 24 ||
24. Four hundred and seventy-four times one hundred divine years passed of the creator [Brahmā], he creating the moving and the unmoving, i.e., planets, stars, gods, demons, etc. [at the beginning of the kalpa].
Note: four hundred and seventy-four, kṛta-adri-veda, word-numbers for four (kṛta, the four dots on a winning dice, also the kṛta yuga where dharma stands on all four legs), seven (adri, mountain, the seven mountains), and four (veda, the four vedas). Then the whole number is to be read backwards, although with this particular number it would not matter.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ṣaṇ-manūnāṃ tu sampīḍya kālaṃ tat-sandhibhiḥ saha |
kalpādi-sandhinā sārdhaṃ vaivasvata-manos tathā || 45 ||
yugānāṃ tri-ghanaṃ yātaṃ tathā kṛta-yugaṃ tv idam |
projjhya sṛṣṭes tataḥ kālaṃ pūrvoktaṃ divya-saṅkhyayā || 46 ||
sūryābda-saṅkhyayā jñeyāḥ kṛtasyānte gatā amī |
kha-catuṣka-yamādry-agni-śara-randhra-niśākarāḥ || 47 ||
45-47. Having combined the time of the six [past] manus together with their sandhi periods, along with the sandhi period at the beginning of the kalpa, also of the Vaivasvata manu the passed three cubed [i.e., 27] yugas, plus this kṛta yuga; having subtracted from that the time of creation previously stated by the count of divine [years]; the passed [years] at the end of the kṛta [yuga] by the count of solar years are to be understood as these: four skies, twins, mountain, fire, arrow, bodily openings, moon [i.e., 1,953,720,000].
Notes: kha-catuṣka, a group of four skies, where sky or space equals 0, so 0000; yama, twins, 2; adri, mountain (the seven mountains), so 7; agni, fire (the three fires), so 3; śara, arrow (the five arrows), so 5; randhra, opening (the nine apertures of the body), so 9; niśākara, “night-maker,” the moon, so 1. Then all these digits must be read backwards, yielding 1,953,720,000. As the word-number nine, the reading randhra is superior to the reading nanda, found only in the edition with the commentary by Parameśvara (based on a transcript of a single manuscript from the Adyar Library). The other commentaries cited in the footnotes read randhra. The nine Nanda brother-kings in Indian history come far later than the age of the Sūrya-siddhānta is supposed to be. The variant sampiṇḍya for sampīḍya in 45a, being synonyms, and the preceding ca for tu, make little difference.
Category: Occult Chronology | No comments yet
29
July
Nārada the Astronomer?
By David Reigle on July 29, 2012 at 6:09 am
When introducing Stanza II of the anthropogenesis portion of the “Book of Dzyan,” given in volume 2 of The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky informs us that the commentary thereon refers to Nārada and Asura Maya (p. 47):
“Stanza II., which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned: Narada and Asura Maya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity; and what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures.”
Blavatsky then gives a section titled, “Two Antediluvian Astronomers” (pp. 47-51), which begins with this paragraph:
“To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic astronomy, chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him, whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre-history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of Narada, the old Vedic Rishi, and of Asuramaya, the Atlantean.”
The asura named Maya is indeed a famous astronomer, writer of the most authoritative Sanskrit text on astronomy, the Sūrya-siddhānta. Nārada is certainly a well-known rishi in Indian tradition, and astronomy is in fact one of the subjects that he is said to have mastered, but he is primarily known for his mastery of music. There is no Sanskrit astronomical treatise in use that is attributed to him, and the classical Indian astronomers do not refer to or quote him. In Blavatsky’s statement, “To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism,” we have to emphasize the words, “of Occultism”; and in her statement, “The mystic East speaks of Narada,” we have to emphasize the word “mystic.” To the mind of the Eastern student in general, Nārada is the divine musician; and the East in general speaks of Nārada the musician, not Nārada the astronomer. Yet, for Blavatsky and her contacts, Nārada was the great astronomer Nārada. We must inquire why this would be so.
As just seen, the secret commentary on the “Book of Dzyan” is reported to refer to the astronomers Nārada and asura Maya. Then, in the section titled, “The Chronology of the Brahmins” (pp. 66-74), figures are given including the age of humanity as 18,618,728 years (in 1887 C.E.), taken from the Tirukkanda Panchanga = Tiru Ganita Panchanga, based on the Sūrya-siddhānta. After giving these figures, Blavatsky writes (p. 70): “These sacred astronomical cycles are of immense antiquity, and most of them pertain, as stated, to the calculations of Nārada and Asuramaya.” So is there some astronomical text that we perhaps no longer have, but that is associated with Nārada, even mythologically?
Ebenezer Burgess, introducing his 1860 translation of the Sūrya-siddhānta, writes (p. 142):
“Among the different Siddhāntas, or text-books of astronomy, existing in India in the Sanskrit language, none appeared better suited to my purpose than the Sūrya-siddhānta. That it is one of the most highly esteemed, best known, and most frequently employed, of all, must be evident to any one who has noticed how much oftener than any other it is referred to as authority in the various papers on the Hindu astronomy. In fact, the science as practised in modern India is in the greater part founded upon its data and processes. In the lists of Siddhāntas given by native authorities it is almost invariably mentioned second, the Brahma-Siddhānta being placed first: the latter enjoys this preeminence, perhaps, mainly on account of its name; it is, at any rate, comparatively rare and little known.”
We see that, at least mythologically, there is a text that is regarded even more highly than the Sūrya-siddhānta, namely, the Brahma-siddhānta. But the genuine original Brahma-siddhānta is apparently no longer extant; otherwise it would surely be in wide use. Nonetheless, there is an extant text called the Brahma-siddhānta, and this tells us why Nārada would be so highly regarded as an astronomer: in it, the god Brahmā teaches astronomy to Nārada. So we may assume that in the original Brahma-siddhānta also, Nārada is the recipient of the knowledge of astronomy from Brahmā. This is like in the Sūrya-siddhānta, where the asura named Maya is the recipient of the knowledge of astronomy from an incarnation or part (aṃśa) of the sun.
The now extant text called Brahma-siddhānta calls itself the second praśna or section of the Śākalya-saṃhitā. There is no English translation of it. It was first published in 1912 in the Sanskrit collection titled, Jyautiṣa-siddhānta-saṃgraha, edited by Vindhyesvari Prasad Dvivedi, in the Benares Sanskrit Series, no. 39. The puzzle of why it calls itself the second praśna was not solved until several decades later. When D. G. Dhavale was preparing a critical edition of the Brahma-siddhānta, he saw that one of the eight manuscripts he had gathered contained many additional verses in its first chapter. These verses showed that the various praśnas or sections of the Śākalya-saṃhitā each summarized an astronomical siddhānta. The first section summarized the Sūrya-siddhānta, and the second section summarized the Brahma-siddhānta. Six more sections summarized the Pauliśa-siddhānta, the Soma-siddhānta, the Romaśa-siddhānta, the Gārgya-siddhānta, the Bṛhaspati-siddhānta, and the Vāsiṣṭha-siddhānta. Of these sections of the Śākalya-saṃhitā, only the summary of the Brahma-siddhānta is now extant. It provides our only window into this long lost text. It shows us that the original Brahma-siddhānta was taught by Brahmā to Nārada.
Even though the original text by Nārada is long lost to us, although perhaps not to the Theosophical Mahatmas (see SD 1.47-51), the tradition of the two great antediluvian astronomers remained known to astronomers in India. A verse from the seventeenth century C.E. Indian astronomer Kamalākara’s Siddhānta-tattva-viveka (verse 65 of the bhagaṇa-māna-adhyāya, chapter on elements of revolutions) is quoted by Sankar Balakrishna Dikshit in his Bharatiya Jyotish Sastra, English translation, vol. 2, p. 47, saying: “That pure (science of astronomy) which was revealed to Maya by the god Sun, was described to Nārada by Brahmā, to Śaunaka by Himaguru (Moon or Soma) and to Māṇḍavya by the sage Vasiṣṭha.”
As for the astronomical contents of the Brahma-siddhānta according to its summary in the Śākalya-saṃhitā, already in 1896 Sankar Balakrishna Dikshit had determined that this summarized version copies the modern Sūrya-siddhānta. He writes (Bharatiya Jyotish Sastra, English translation, vol. 2, p. 4): “The basic principles, propounded by the Śākalya Brahma Siddhānta, even it be more ancient than Brahmagupta, are exactly the same as those propounded by the modern Sūrya-siddhānta.” Again, he says (p. 49): “The number of revolutions and other elements in this tally entirely with those of the Sūrya-siddhānta in all respects and have already been given.” This was confirmed by D. G. Dhavale when preparing his Sanskrit critical edition, The Brahmasiddhānta of Śākalyasaṃhitā (Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1996). He writes in his English Introduction (pp. xi-xii): “It is generally agreed that this Brahmasiddhānta is based on the modern Sūryasiddhānta. In order to compare the two siddhāntas I prepared a line index to the S.S. [Sūryasiddhānta] . . . On comparison it was found that agreement in actual wording of the two siddhāntas occurs in 65 lines or caraṇas. . . . The present Brh. [Brahmasiddhānta] closely follows the modern S.S. in date about the planetary motions etc.” It seems certain, then, that like the Sūrya-siddhānta, where we have only a modern revision of the original text, so the summary of the Brahma-siddhānta in the Śākalya-saṃhitā is only a modern revision.
Nonetheless, although this summary apparently does not preserve the original astronomical data of the original Brahma-siddhānta, Sankar Balakrishna Dikshit noticed that it was unique in a couple of ways. First, “the subject of religion also, which is never met with in an astronomical work, has been included in it” (op. cit., p. 49). Further on this, D. G. Dhavale found in the one manuscript that had additional verses in the first chapter, an entire additional chapter, a seventh adhyāya. It, too, apparently pertains to religion. He writes (op. cit., p. ix): “The contents of the seventh Adhyāya, however, do not justify its inclusion in a treatise on astronomy. In fact the chapter reads more like a Purāṇa than an astronomical essay. Whatever astronomical references there are in it are about the same as are found in some of the Purāṇas.” For this reason, he unfortunately did not include this otherwise unknown chapter in his edition, so we do not know exactly what is in it. There is an astrological text attributed to Nārada, the Nāradīya-saṃhitā, on divination and muhūrta. A Sanskrit edition of it was prepared by Haridāsagupta and published in 1905. Much of its contents are included in the Nārada-purāṇa, according to a comparison made by K. Damodara Nambiar (published in the journal, Purāṇa, Jan. 1974, pp. 103-112, and cited in Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare’s Introduction to his English translation of The Nārada-Purāṇa, Part 1, Delhi, 1980, p. 30). Perhaps some of this material in fact came from the original Brahma-siddhānta.
Second, the Brahma-siddhānta is also unique in that it gives otherwise unknown information about the seven stars of what we call the Great Bear or Big Dipper constellation, known as the Seven Rishis (saptarṣi). Sankar Balakrishna Dikshit writes (op. cit., p. 50): “It is the specialty of this work that it gives the latitudes and longitudes of the Saptarṣi group (i.e. Great Bear), which are not given by any other siddhānta.” There is a very unusual cycle associated with the Seven Rishis, taught by the ancient astronomer Vṛddha Garga in a now lost text (quoted by Bhaṭṭotpala in his commentary on Varāha-mihira’s Bṛhat-saṃhitā, chapter 13). These stars are supposed to move through one asterism or nakṣatra in exactly one hundred solar years. Of course, the fixed stars have no such physical motion. Nonetheless, the cycle is real, and has been in use in parts of India and Kashmir from ancient times, as seen in stone inscriptions, and right up to the present. It has been studied in detail by John E. Mitchiner in his 1982 book, Traditions of the Seven Ṛṣis. I have written a little about it and its relation to Theosophical teachings in my article, “The Centennial Cycle” (Theosophical History, vol. 11, no. 4, Oct. 2005, pp. 5-15; http://www.easterntradition.org/centennial%20cycle.pdf). According to David Pingree, Nārada is “one of the interlocutors in the Vṛddhagārgīsaṃhitā” (Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, Series A, vol. 3, 1976, p. 148; see also vol. 2, 1971, p. 118). Whether or not Nārada and Vṛddha Garga here discuss the cycle of the Seven Rishis, the fact that Nārada gives unique information on the Seven Rishis associates him with old teachings on astronomical cycles.
It is clear from the above that Nārada is considered to be an ancient astronomer, one of the very most eminent as the recipient of the astronomical teachings from Brahmā that formed the original but now lost Brahma-siddhānta.
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24
July
The Importance of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga Data
By David Reigle on July 24, 2012 at 2:23 am
The Tiru Ganita Panchanga is the only known source that supports the 18 million years age of physical humanity. This is a key figure in The Secret Doctrine, given many times there. It is very important to try to determine how this figure was arrived at in the Tiru Ganita Panchanga. The figure that everyone else gets for the age of the Vaivasvata manvantara from the data given in the Sūrya-siddhānta is about 120 million years. It so happens that this latter figure, too, is given in The Secret Doctrine, from a secret commentary translated in vol. 2, p. 312 (followed by HPB’s comment):
“The last change took place nearly twelve crores of years ago (120,000,000). But the Earth with everything on her face had become cool, hard and settled ages earlier. (Commentary, xxii.)”
“Thus, if we are to believe esoteric teaching, there have been no more universal geological disturbances and changes for the last 120 millions of years, and the Earth was, even before that time, ready to receive her human stock. The appearance of the latter, however, in its full physical development, as already stated, took place only about eighteen millions of years ago, . . .”
So the 120 million years figure refers to one thing, and the 18 million years figure to another. The question is how the 18 million years figure is derived from the same data that yielded the 120 million years figure. David Pratt called my attention to a note in his “Secret Cycles” article, which mentions that Hans Malmstedt thought he had figured it out, but did not give it. See: http://davidpratt.info/secretcyc.htm#s9, where we read:
“It would be interesting to know how the figure of 18,618,841 years (SD 2:69) for Vaivasvata manvantara (up to 2000) was calculated. The last digit (1) indicates that it could be based on the yugas, since the present maha-yuga began 3,893,101 years ago. The period of 18,618,841 years began 826,260 years after the start of the treta-yuga of the fourth maha-yuga prior to the current maha-yuga. The significance of the period of 826,260 years (= 13,771 x 60) is not immediately evident.
Hans Malmstedt says that if we consider the period of 18,618,740 years preceding the present kali-yuga, and deduct 1075 periods of 1,728,000 years each (i.e. 18,576,000 years), we are left with 37,740 years. He adds: ‘This number of years has a certain relation to a far greater period, closely connected with the five globes above the seven manifested globes of our planetary chain’ (‘Our position in time on globe D’, The Theosophical Path, Oct 1933, pp. 226-35). Unfortunately, he does not expand on this bold assertion!”
In trying to figure these things out, we must take note of a typo in the 1880-1881 Tiru Ganita Panchanga that Dr. Ramanujachary kindly transcribed for us. In the line, “Years that passed since SWAYAMBHAVA Manu — 16645009981,” there is an extra “9”. The figure should be 1664500981, as confirmed by the figure given by HPB in The Secret Doctrine (vol. 2, p. 68) from the 1884-1885 issue. It is always the case that when figures are given, two or more printings must be checked in order to see if there are misprints. That is one reason why the 18 million years figure was in question. In this case, we can see the page for ourselves, and can see the typo. It is in the third of the scanned pages, near the top. A chart is there given, with the four main figures given first, then the eight other figures in two columns with a separating line. So the figure in question is the third of the main figures (or the seventh line from the top of the page, on the right hand side of that line). We can see that that figure has eleven digits rather than ten; and it does not take long to learn (by comparison) enough of the Telugu digits to see that the 9 is indeed doubled by mistake. Dr. Ramanujachary transcribed it correctly for us. It is a typographical error in the original.
The Telugu name of this panchanga that we learned from Dr. Ramanujachary, the Drik Ganita Panchanga, or Dṛg-gaṇita Pañcāṅga, is interesting. The Sanskrit term dṛg-gaṇita usually refers to astronomical calculations (gaṇita) that are based on, or corrected by, observation (dṛg = dṛk = dṛś = “see”). There is always a small margin of error in astronomical constants given in texts, so that over time, the calculated planetary positions no longer match the observed planetary positions. But because of the great authority of texts such as the Sūrya-siddhānta or the Āryabhaṭīya, people are hesitant to change the astronomical constants given in them. Thus, for example, the parahita system of calculations used in Kerala state in south India, put forth by Haridatta, was based directly on the astronomical constants given in the Āryabhaṭīya. Several centuries later, the Indian astronomer Parameśvara saw that the calculated positions no longer matched the observed positions. So he introduced the dṛg-gaṇita system of calculations, which incorporates corrections based on observation. See on this the English “Introduction” by the eminent scholar of Hindu astronomy K. V. Sarma (late of the Adyar Library) to his Sanskrit edition of Dṛggaṇita of Parameśvara (Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, 1963).
Similarly, we learn that in the 1900s “A new type of almanac, called Dṛggaṇita, whose calculation is based on modern Nautical almanacs and ephemerides is becoming popular” (T. S. Kuppanna Sastry, “A Brief History of Tamil Astronomy,” Madras University Journal, reprinted in his posthumously published book, Collected Papers on Jyotisha, Tirupati, 1989, pp. 329-344, quote from p. 342; he does not mention the Tiru Ganita Panchanga in this article). In fact, shortly after Indian independence, lack of uniformity in panchangas led to the establishment by the new government of a Calendar Reform Committee in 1952. Its recommendations were published in 1955. The government then began publishing a national panchanga, the Rashtriya Panchang, in 1957. It is based on the Nautical Almanac prepared and published in India, according to the issues of it that I obtained in India in the 1970s. It does not list elapsed years since creation, or of any manu or manvantara, nor does it refer to the Sūrya-siddhānta.
What a panchanga is and its place in Indian society is well described by S. K. Chatterjee and A. K. Chakravarty in their chapter, “Indian Calendar from Post-Vedic Period to AD 1900,” of the book, History of Astronomy in India (ed. S. N. Sen and K. S. Shukla, New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1985, second revised edition 2000, pp. 276-336, section on “Pañcāṅga or Indian Almanac,” pp. 290-304), p. 290:
“Pañcāṅga is a very important book published yearly and is the basic book of the society giving calendrical information of various nature on daily basis, and is extensively used by the people all over India. This publication is also one of the basic books of the astrologers for making astrological calculations, casting horoscopes, and for making predictions. It is also used considerably by a large section of the people as an astrological guide book for finding out auspicious time for undertaking various social and other activities and the inauspicious time for avoiding such activities. This book shows the date and time of various religious festivals, and is used by the priests for determining the auspicious moments for carrying out various religious rites, and as such it is a fundamental book which is referred to by a very large section of the people in this country.”
They go on to describe the five constituents of a pañcāṅga (literally, “five limbs”):
“(a) Vāra, that is, week day;
(b) Tithi, that is, lunar day. It is indicative of the phase of the Moon.
(c) Nakṣatra, that is, position of the Moon in the nakṣatra division.
(d) Yoga means literally addition. It is the time period when the longitudinal motions of the Sun and the Moon when added amounts to 13° 12’ or its integral multiple.
(e) Karaṇa means half period of a tithi.”
More detail about pañcāṅgas, their constituents, and the recommendations of the government Calendar Reform Committee is given by B. V. Subbarayappa in the chapter titled “Pañcāṅga” of his book, The Tradition of Astronomy in India: Jyotiḥśāstra (History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, Vol. IV, Part 4, New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2008), pp. 203-234. I am giving only references to these books rather than scanning and posting the chapters themselves, unless requested. This information is peripheral to our immediate purpose of trying to understand how the elapsed years of the Vaivasvata manvantara given in the Tiru Ganita Panchanga were calculated from the data given in the Sūrya-siddhānta. As seen, these elapsed years are given at the beginning of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga as added information, and it does not form part of what constitutes a panchanga. It is not given in modern panchangas.
In the last fifty years the majority of research articles published on the Sūrya-siddhānta and related texts have been appearing in Indian Journal of History of Science. It began in 1966, and is published by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. Recently, all the issues from 1966 to the present have become available online, at: http://insa.nic.in/INSAuth/OurPublications.aspx. You have to sign up to be able to download articles. If you are fortunate enough to live near a major academic library that carries this journal, note that the title is Indian Journal of History of Science, not Indian Journal of the History of Science, or you will not find it in the library catalogue. As may be expected, the great majority of these articles are concerned with astronomical calculations of planetary motions based on data given in the Sūrya-siddhānta. In the Sūrya-siddhānta, the data on the yugas and manvantaras precedes the main part of the text, and is found in chapter one. The yugas and manvantaras are usually considered by today’s intelligentsia as part of mythology rather than the history of science. The Secret Doctrine is usually considered by today’s intelligentsia as fantasy rather than mythology. So to have the support of even mythology is a decided gain.
Category: Occult Chronology | 2 comments
18
July
The Tirukkanda Panchanga, = Tiru-gaṇita Pañcāṅga, = Dṛg-gaṇita Pañcāṅga
By David Reigle on July 18, 2012 at 12:09 am
As noted in the posting dated May 20, 2012 (The Mystery of the Age of Humanity: Still Unsolved), Prof. C. A. Shinde (Librarian of the Adyar Library) kindly informed me that although the Adyar library does not have the particular issue that H. P. Blavatsky used, for kali yuga 4986 or 1884-1885 C.E., it does have several previous years of the Tirukkanda Panchanga, 1870-1881. This was wonderful news, since any one of these should give the epochs used in this long-defunct almanac, and that HPB used in The Secret Doctrine (vol. 2, pp. 68-69). I then requested the help of Dr. N. C. Ramanujachary with this, who has taken out time from his full schedule to carefully check the 1880-1881 issue and to write up a detailed reply. His extremely helpful reply has elucidated and clarified much for us. I have received his permission to post it here. It is dated July 15, 2012. He wrote:
“I am sorry for the delay but it was unavoidable because of my tours and non-availability of time.
But I am glad I was able to do some useful work on the way that was puzzling you, with the kind help of Prof. C A Shinde, the Librarian of the Adyar Library.
I will place the points in numbers:
- The Adyar Library has not got the said Panchangam for 1884-5, but luckily they have the number for 1880-81. By adding 4 years to the figures available in this, we get the actual years for 1884-5, I am sure you will agree.
- The name of the Panchanga is actually “Tiru (=Sri) Ganita (=mathematical) Panchangam” in Tamil and “Drik-Ganita-Panchangamu” in Telugu. Evidently the person who informed HPB of the names did not spell it well or the variation in pronunciation made it ‘Tirukkanda Panchangam’ – which is obviously wrong. The Panchangam is printed by ‘Vyavahara Tarangini Mudrakshara Sala’ at Chennapuri (=Madras). The compilers of the Panchangam are: Chintamani Raghunathacharyulu and Tadakamalla Venkata Krishna Rao living in Nungumbakkam and Triplicane (both are part-wards of Madras City). You will find the names of compilers were also defectively noted in The Secret Doctrine, as also all other records of literature derived from that.
- This Panchangam is published year after year in Tamil (Dravid) and Telugu. Happily as I know Telugu, I was able to fish out the material you wanted.
- I am holding photo-copies (2) of the title page and the Inner page where the figures are enumerated, given kindly by the Adyar Library; and will be able to post them by Air Mail if you can send me the Postal address, which I do not have now. If you need exact English translation of the pages, I can also give it.
- Now, coming to the figure/number part:
Calendar for the Vikrama year (1880-81)
According to Sri Surya Siddhanta :
Years that passed since Brahman-kalpa: 1972948980
Years that passed since Creation (Srishti) 1955884981
Years that passed since SWAYAMBHAVA Manu 16645009981
Years that passed in Vaivaswata Manu 18618721
____________________________________________________
Years that passed in Kaliyuga 4982
Years that passed in Vikrama Satabda 1938
Years that passed in Salivahana Saka 1803
KOLLAMANDU 1054-55
ENGLISH 1880-81
HIZARI 1297-98
PHASALI 1289-90
YEARS THAT THIS PANCHANGA WAS SINCE PUBLISHED 12
____________________________________________________
MY NOTE [Dr. Ramanujachary]: The years in between the 2 border lines do not concern us now.
When you add 4 years (duration between 1880-81 & 84-85) to the years that passed in Vaivaswata Manu, we get the figure 18,618,725, which was adopted by HPB. Please also note the Tiru Ganita Panchangam clearly says the figures are according to SURYA SIDDHANTA.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dr. Ramanujachary then had scans of the relevant pages made and sent to me. They are here attached, so that anyone can see these things for themselves: tiruganitapanchangam.
First, we see that the title Tirukkanda Panchanga is incorrectly written. Using a phonetic spelling like HPB used, it is the Tiru Ganita Panchanga, following the Tamil, or the Drik Ganita Panchanga, following the Telugu. It is in fact the Dṛg-gaṇita Pañcāṅga, described in Sankar Balakrishna Dikshit’s book, Bharatiya Jyotish Sastra (references and link given at the end of the posting on the Tirukkanda Panchanga dated May 30).
Next, we see that there is indeed a typographical or clerical error in the figure 1,955,884,687 years given in The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, p. 68, which should be 1,955,884,987. This was deduced by Hans Malmstedt in his 1933 article, as reported by David Pratt (references and links given in the April 29, 2012 posting, Occult Chronology: The Age of the World, part 2). The figure 1,664,500,987 years given in The Secret Doctrine is also confirmed (see HPB’s footnote on this, vol. 2, p. 68), showing that Malmstedt has again provided the correct solution to this problem.
Last and most important, the figure for the age of the Vaivasvata manvantara, given in The Secret Doctrine as 18,618,728 years (vol. 2, p. 69), is confirmed as being correctly copied from the Tiru Ganita Panchanga. It is not a mistaken transcription, as I suggested may have been the case in my posting dated May 30, 2012. This puts us on firm ground to proceed with our investigation. We now have to determine how this figure was arrived at, based on information given in the Sūrya-siddhānta. Everyone else gets a figure of about 120 million years for the age of the Vaivasvata manvantara based on this data. It is possible that the compilers of the Tiru Ganita Panchanga had access to a more complete copy of the Sūrya-siddhānta. As stated in the posting on the Sūrya-siddhānta, dated May 15, 2012, manuscripts of this text vary widely. Most of the Sanskrit commentaries on it remain unpublished. The Indian astronomers who produced the Tiru Ganita Panchanga somehow got a figure of 18 million years for this. As Dr. Ramanujachary confirmed, in agreement with what HPB reported (SD 2.49-51), “the Tiru Ganita Panchangam clearly says the figures are according to SURYA SIDDHANTA.”
Category: Occult Chronology | No comments yet
9
July
The Three Logoi (3)
By Ingmar de Boer on July 9, 2012 at 5:21 pm
4. Analysis
As we have seen, HPB associates Mahat, the Universal Mind or Intelligence, with the Second Logos. As Cosmic Ideation, we would associate it with the Nous and the world of Ideas of the Plotinic model, corresponding to the Second Logos. The Nous as the creative principle of the universe on the other hand, may be associated with the third aspect, not the second. In the Besant-Leadbeater interpretation the Nous is the creative Mind, corresponding to the Third Logos, Divine Activity. Therefore in this model the Demiurge is associated with the Third Logos, again because the third is the “creative aspect”. Notably, in both models the Dhyan Chohans are connected with the third aspect.
These different views, as we have seen, can be traced to the Plotinic interpretation of the three logoi by HPB, versus the interpretation of Damascius, and subsequently Mead in his Orpheus, and Besant and Leadbeater. Another source for Mead however, was The Secret Doctrine, as it was, naturally, for Besant and Leadbeater. Did Mead, Besant and Leadbeater make a conscious choice to deviate from HPB’s interpretation? We do not have an argumentation from any of them for doing so. Maybe they did not think they were so far removed from HPB’s interpretation? In SD I, 256 we find:
For MAHAT is the first product of Pradhana, or Akasa, and Mahat — Universal intelligence “whose characteristic property is Buddhi” — is no other than the Logos, for he is called “Eswara” Brahma, Bhava, etc. (See Linga Purana, sec. lxx. 12 et seq.; and Vayu Purana, but especially the former Purana — prior, section viii., 67-74). He is, in short, the “Creator” or the divine mind in creative operation, “the cause of all things.”
Pradhāna is associated with he First Logos, cp. Mūlaprakṛti. The first product of pradhāna is the Second Logos. Universal intelligence is the Logos, Īśvara, Brahmā, again the Second Logos, not the Third. In the next phrase the problem becomes apparent: he is the “Creator”, “the divine mind in creative operation”, which could easily be interpreted as the third aspect. It is, confusingly, about the Second Logos, the Divine Mind or Wisdom, and not about fohat, its force, i.e. the Third Logos.
We can see that the cause of misunderstanding here is, that the description of the Second and Third Logoi is not unambiguous. This quote from SD I, 256 is only one example, but this ambiguity occurs repeatedly through the whole text of the SD, making it difficult to reconstruct the model of the triad as it was intended.
5. Synthesis
When we combine the correspondences between the two interpretations, we might come to the following three “definitions”.
1. The First Logos is the ever unmanifest Logos, Divine Will.
2. The Second Logos is the manifested Logos, Divine Wisdom.
3. The Third Logos is described by HPB as the “light of the Logos”, Divine Activity.
I will summarize here, the model presented in The Secret Doctrine, suppleted with the terminology from The Ancient Wisdom and other correspondences found, leaving out the differences which are based on problems of interpretation, as we have been able to show, I hope convincingly, in these posts on the Three Logoi.
1. First Logos, the One, the Ever Unmanifest, represented by Mūlaprakṛti, the Plotinic and Orphic Hen, Hyparxis, Universal Good, the Christian Father-aspect, Divine Will.
2. Second Logos, the manifested Logos, the Logos proper, the Verbum, the Plotinic Nous, the Demiurge, HPB’s Anima Mundi, Creative Intelligence, Mahat, Universal Mind, Universal Intelligence, Divine Mind, Divine Wisdom, the Son-aspect, the Christ, Brahmā, Īśvara, Avalokiteśvara (manifested).
3. Third Logos, the Light of the Logos, Fohat, Daiviprakṛti, the Plotinic Psuchē, Universal Soul (the Plotinic Anima Mundi), the Nous of Anaxagoras, Divine Activity, the Holy Ghost.
- The-Three-Logoi-4.pdf (144 kB)
Category: Anima Mundi, Avalokiteshvara, Brahma, Cosmogenesis, Daiviprakriti, Demiurge, Fohat, Hypostasis, Logos, Mahat, Mulaprakriti, Nous, Universal Mind, World Soul | 4 comments
9
July
The Three Logoi (2)
By Ingmar de Boer on at 4:59 pm
2. The three logoi in The Secret Doctrine
What comes closest to a definition of the logoi in The Secret Doctrine, is a quote from the 1885 lecture of T. Subba Row, published under the title Notes on the Bhagavad Gita. In SD I, 429 we find:
Metaphysicians explain the root and germ of the latter, according to Mr. Subba Row, as the first manifestation of Parabrahmam, “the highest trinity that we are capable of understanding,” which is Mulaprakriti (the veil), the Logos, and the conscious energy “of the latter,” or its power and light*; or — “matter, force and the Ego, or the one root of self, of which every other kind of self is but a manifestation or a reflection.”
So we have as the triad, according to Subba Row (Notes…, TUP 2nd ed., p. 22):
1. Mulaprakriti,
2. Eswara or Logos,
3. conscious energy of the Logos, which is its power and light.
Subba Row describes Mūlaprakṛti as a “veil over parabrahman”. He identifies the third aspect with the concept of Daiviprakṛti as used in the Bhagavad Gīta, and notes that it “is called fohat in several Buddhist books”.
HPB and Subba Row’s interpretation seems to correspond to Plotinus, who is considered the main representative of the Neo-Platonic system. In this model the Nous is the second hypostasis:
1. To Hen (The One)
2. Ho Nous (Intellect, Spirit, Universal Mind)
3. Hē Psuchē (The World Soul)
Mead in his work on Plotinus (p. 26 and 28) also describes the Nous as the second principle. Proclus, in his Metaphysical Elements, follows Plotinus in this respect: Proposition XX: The essence of soul [Hē Psuchē] is beyond all bodies [To Sōma], the intellectual nature [Ho Nous] is beyond all souls, and The One [To Hen] is beyond, all intellectual hypostases.
In the Christian tradition, for example in Augustinus’ De Trinitate, we find the same triad:
1. Father, cp. To Hen
2. Son, the Christ, the Word, the Logos, cp. Ho Nous
3. Holy Ghost, cp. the Anima Mundi, World Soul, Hē Psuchē
Contrary to Plotinus however, who identified the Nous with the Demiurge, in the Christian tradition the Father-aspect is identified with the Creator God, as formulated in the first line of the Nicene Creed of 325 (tr. Philip Schaff):
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.
3. The three logoi in The Ancient Wisdom
The introduction to Besant’s The Ancient Wisdom we find a clue as to the origin of the Besant-Leadbeater interpretation. On page 28, reference is made to Orpheus, a study by G.R.S. Mead of 1896 on the theogony of the Orphic religion. In Orpheus the creation of the universe begins with The One. The One Existence is called thrice unknown darkness in the Orphic system. From the darkness comes the primordial triad, with its three hypostases:
1. Universal Good (super-essential),
2. World Soul (self-motive essence),
3. Intellect (Mind).
These three hypostases “appear”, in AW p. 34-35, as the Christian Trinity where the First Logos is the Father, the “fount of all life”, the Second Logos the Son, and the Third Logos the Holy Ghost, the “creative Mind”. The creative Mind, the “noetic” aspect, is presented here as the third aspect.
From Orpheus (p. 93) we learn that the essential characteristics of the Orphic triads are defined by Plato as
1. Bound (hyparxis)
2. Infinite (power)
3. Mixed (noesis, fr. Nous)
In Plato’s dialogue Philebus, these characteristics are summed up by Socrates in a different order: 1. infinite (apeiron), 2. finite (peras) and 3. mixed (meikton). In SD I, 426, HPB states that Porphyry shows that the Monad and the Duad of Pythagoras are identical with Plato’s infinite and finite in “Philebus” — or what Plato calls the ἄπειρον and πέρας, confirming this order. The noetic, μεικτόν, is again in third position.
Mead in his turn in Orpheus refers to Neo-Platonist authors Proclus and Damascius. Damascius’ Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles seems to be Mead’s main source concerning the Orphic metaphysical system. Moreover, HPB has also read this work, and refers to it as “πρώτων ἀρχῶν“. In the First Principles, for example in the French translation of Edouard Chaignet of 1898, we find in § 55 that the third principle, which is the Nous, “is called mixed by Plato” and by “Philolaus and the pythagoreans”. The Three Universal Principles, the proenōma, are called
1. Father, Patēr
2. Power, Dunamis
3. Reason, Nous
We can see that Damascius’ interpretation of the Primordial Triad goes back to Plato’s Philebus. Even earlier, Anaxagoras (and later Aristotle) used the term Nous to denote purely the creative principle in the universe. As such, it could of course also be associated with the third principle.
Continued in part 3
Category: Brahma, Cosmogenesis, Darkness, Demiurge, Fohat, Hypostasis, Logos, Mulaprakriti, Nous | 4 comments
10
June
The Āryabhaṭīya by Āryabhaṭa
By David Reigle on June 10, 2012 at 8:47 pm
The Āryabhaṭīya was not as well known in old India as the Sūrya-siddhānta. In modern times, however, it has attracted more attention than any other Sanskrit text on astronomy. This is because, among other things, as far back as the year 499 C.E. it taught the rotation of the earth on its axis. Āryabhaṭa made no claim to have discovered this. Rather, he simply included it in a matter-of-fact manner in his brief treatise, which purports to present the system of astronomy taught by Brahmā. Despite the authority of this ancient system, other famous Indian astronomers (including Varāha-mihira and Brahmagupta) were quick to criticize Āryabhaṭa for teaching the rotation of the earth on its axis. Āryabhaṭa also gave another teaching, anomalous in Indian tradition, which he was criticized for. Rather than the standard 4:3:2:1 ratio for the lengths of the four yugas, he taught that they are of equal length. He gives the overall length of a mahā-yuga the same as everyone else does: 4,320,000 years (chapter 1, verse 3). But the four yugas that comprise it are each 1,080,000 years in length. This gives us another method of calculation to work with. It is noteworthy that equal length yugas are also found in the Buddhist Kālacakra astronomy.
The Āryabhaṭīya and the Sūrya-siddhānta agree fully on the starting point of the present kali-yuga (3102 B.C.E.), and they agree in general that the length of a kalpa or day of Brahmā is more than four billion years, while we are about two billion years into this at present. But there are some differences. The Āryabhaṭīya says in chapter 1, verse 5 (translated by Kripa Shankar Shukla, 1976): “A day of Brahmā (or a Kalpa) is equal to (a period of) 14 Manus, and (the period of one) Manu is equal to 72 yugas. Since Thursday, the beginning of the current Kalpa, 6 Manus, 27 yugas and 3 quarter yugas had elapsed before the beginning of the current Kaliyuga (lit. before Bhārata).” This means that a kalpa is 14 times 72 making 1008 yugas. Thus, unlike in the Sūrya-siddhānta where a kalpa is 1000 yugas or 4,320,000,000 years, in the Āryabhaṭīya a kalpa is 4,354,560,000 years. The period of a manu, consisting of 72 yugas (rather than 71 yugas as in the Sūrya-siddhānta), is 311,040,000 years. Up to the beginning of the present kali-yuga, we have:
6 manus (311,040,000) equals 1,866,240,000 years, plus
27 yugas (4,320,000) equals 116,640,000 years, plus
3 quarter yugas (1,080,000) equals 3,240,000 years, yields
1,986,120,000 years.
As stated in an earlier post, the Sūrya-siddhānta gives the figure 1,953,720,000 years from the beginning of the epoch (17,064,000 years after the beginning of the kalpa) to the end of the last kṛta-yuga. Up to the beginning of the present kali-yuga we would have to add to this the 1,296,000 years of the tretā-yuga and the 864,000 years of the dvāpara-yuga. This yields 1,955,880,000 years. So while the number of years that have elapsed in our world-period is in the same general range of two billion years, the specific numbers differ. The information given in this verse also tells us the number of years that have elapsed of our current or Vaivasvata manvantara up to the beginning of the present kali-yuga: 116,640,000 (27 times 4,320,000) plus 3,240,000 (3 times 1,080,000) equals 119,880,000 years. The information given in the Sūrya-siddhānta provides a little different result for this: 116,640,000 (27 times 4,320,000) plus 3,888,000 (1,728,000 + 1,296,000 + 864,000) equals 120,528,000 years. Perhaps a lost work by Āryabhaṭa, known to have once existed, would shed light on the reasons for these differences.
The Āryabhaṭīya is a brief and somewhat cryptic text, consisting of only 108 verses plus its 10 (or 13) verse summary given at the beginning. The extant Sūrya-siddhānta consists of 500 verses. As noted earlier, the old Sūrya-siddhānta (as summarized in the Pañcasiddhāntikā) was determined to have used the astronomical constants found in a lost work by Āryabhaṭa. Prabodh Chandra Sengupta showed the close agreement of the astronomical constants used in the old Sūrya-siddhānta with those given in Brahmagupta’s Khaṇḍa-khādyaka, which had been published in 1925. The source of the Khaṇḍa-khādyaka’s astronomical constants, as shown by Sengupta, is a lost work by Āryabhaṭa (“Aryabhata’s Lost Work,” Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, vol. 22, 1930, pp. 115-120). This was confirmed by the discovery of the Mahābhāskarīya (written by an earlier Bhāskara than the author of the famous Siddhānta-śiromaṇi), announced by Bibhutibhusan Datta (“The Two Bhāskaras,” Indian Historical Quarterly, vol. 6, 1930, pp. 727-736), and first published in 1945 in the Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series, no. 126. It gives in its chapter seven the astronomical constants of the two different systems used by Āryabhaṭa: those of the day reckoned from sunrise, used in his Āryabhaṭīya, and those of the day reckoned from midnight, used in his now lost work. Strangely, it is these latter astronomical constants that were used in the old and now lost version of the Sūrya-siddhānta.
Like with the Sūrya-siddhānta, there are at present three complete English translations of the Āryabhaṭīya. The first is “The Aryabhatiyam,” Translation by P. C. Sengupta, Journal of the Department of Letters, University of Calcutta, vol. 16, 1927, pp. 1-56, also published as a separate offprint. Much supplemental material was published in separate articles by Sengupta; e.g., “Aryabhata: The Father of Indian Epicyclic Astronomy” (op. cit., vol. 18, 1928, pp. 1-56), and “Greek and Hindu Methods in Spherical Astronomy” (op. cit., vol. 21, 1931, pp. 1-25). The second translation is The Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa, Translated with Notes by Walter Eugene Clark, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930. However, Clark’s translation had been done about five years before its publication, with his student Baidyanath Sastri, and could not utilize Sengupta’s translation (see Preface, p. xvii). Clark describes his translation made with Sastri as “a preliminary study based on inadequate material,” adding that: “Of several passages no translation has been given or only a tentative translation has been suggested” (p. vii). The third translation is Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa, Critically edited with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Comments and Indexes, by Kripa Shankar Shukla in collaboration with K. V. Sarma, New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1976. This translation is quite the most definitive, due in no small measure to the fact that, in the interim, Bhāskara I’s three expository works on the Āryabhaṭīya became available: the Mahā-bhāskarīya, the Laghu-bhāskarīya, and Bhāskara’s direct commentary on the Āryabhaṭīya. Kripa Shankar Shukla writes in his Introduction to the Laghu-bhāskarīya (1963, p. xxiv): “In the absence of the works of Bhāskara I, many a passage in the Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa I would have remained obscure to us.”
The Sanskrit text of the Āryabhaṭīya was first published in 1874, along with the commentary by Parameśvara (called Paramādīśvara on the title page), edited by H. Kern (Leiden: E. J. Brill). This edition was admittedly based on inadequate manuscript material (Preface, p. v: “This first edition of the Āryabhaṭīya . . . is mainly based upon two manuscripts”; p. xi: “It will be understood that with the scanty, however valuable, materials at my disposal, I could not attempt to constitute the text such as the author published it.”). Nonetheless, it made the text available. The Āryabhaṭīya was then edited by K. Sāmbaśiva Śāstrī with the commentary by Nīlakaṇṭha-somasutvan, published in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, no. 101, 1930, and no. 110, 1931, with the third volume edited by Śūranāḍ Kuñjan Pillai, no. 185, 1957. Then followed an edition in 1966 by S. V. Sohoni with a modern Sanskrit commentary and Hindi commentary, both by Baladeva Mishra (Patna, Bihar Research Society). A critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the Āryabhaṭīya, prepared by K. V. Sarma, accompanied the 1976 English translation by Kripa Shankar Shukla listed above. Unlike the Sūrya-siddhānta, the text of the Āryabhaṭīya seems to be well established (Introduction, p. lxxiii: “The collation of the manuscripts did not reveal many significant variations in the text.”). Two more volumes were published along with this 1976 volume, providing Sanskrit editions of important commentaries. One is the Āryabhaṭīya with the commentary of Bhāskara I and Someśvara, edited by Kripa Shankar Shukla (New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1976). The other is the Āryabhaṭīya with the commentary of Sūryadeva Yajvan, edited by K. V. Sarma (New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1976).
Category: Noteworthy Books, Occult Chronology | No comments yet
30
May
The Tirukkanda Panchanga Figure: A Mistaken Transcription?
By David Reigle on May 30, 2012 at 2:47 am
While awaiting the arrival of material from a Tirukkanda Panchanga held by the Adyar Library, all my attempts to arrive at the needed eighteen million years figure have failed, whether using the 1:2:3:4 ratio or the 1:2:3:4:5:6:7 ratio. At the same time, I have found no hint of anything but the traditional figures in any of the pañcāṅga material that I have. The 18,618,725 or 18,618,728 years figure that we seek is beginning to look suspiciously like a mistaken transcription from the Tirukkanda Panchanga, or possibly a misprint in it.
A traditional pañcāṅga may give the length of a manvantara, which as stated earlier is 306,720,000 years (before the addition of the 1,728,000 years sandhi period at the end). It may give the elapsed years of the current or Vaivasvata manvantara, which as stated earlier is 120,532,986 years up to the year 1884 C.E. It may then give the number of years still remaining in the current or Vaivasvata manvantara, which in the year 1884 C.E. would be 186,187,014 years (again not counting the 1,728,000 years sandhi period at the end of the manvantara). If one of the last three digits was mistakenly omitted from this figure when it was transcribed from the Tirukkanda Panchanga (or even if there was a misprint in that issue of the Tirukkanda Panchanga), we would have 18,618,701 or 18,618,704 or 18,618,714, suspiciously like the 18,618,725 or 18,618,728 years figure that we seek.
Background information on what must be the Tirukkanda Panchanga, although it is not called that, may be found in Sankar Balakrishna Dikshit’s book, Bharatiya Jyotish Sastra, vol. 2, pp. 181-182, and 285-286 (available online, http://www.scribd.com/doc/76935732/Bharatiya-Jyotish-Sastra-2). It is there called the Dṛggaṇita Pañcāṅga, by Cintāmaṇi Raghunāthācārya. It began being published in Śaka 1791, or 1869 C.E.
Category: Occult Chronology | 1 comment
27
May
The Yugas and Kalpas as Taught in the Purāṇas
By David Reigle on May 27, 2012 at 6:56 pm
For those who may not have easy access to all the relevant Indian texts, here is an article that gives the teaching on the yugas and kalpas as found in the Purāṇas, in comparison with that found in the Manu-Smṛti (The Laws of Manu), the epic Mahābhārata, and Sanskrit astronomical treatises (Jyotiṣa Siddhāntas) such as the Sūrya-siddhānta. The article is titled, “The Purāṇic Theory of the Yugas and Kalpas—A Study,” by Anand Swarup Gupta, published in Purāṇa [Half-yearly Bulletin of the Purāṇa Department, All-India Kashiraj Trust, Varanasi], vol. 11, no. 2, July 1969, pp. 304-323. It also includes the teaching on the manvantaras. At the end it gives the geological time scale taken from Principles of Physical Geology, by Arthur Holmes, originally published in 1944. For the link I have titled the file, Yugas and Kalpas – Puranic Theory of.
Category: Occult Chronology | 1 comment
25
May
O Lanoo! The Secret Doctrine Unveiled
By David Reigle on May 25, 2012 at 4:47 am
In the book, O Lanoo! The Secret Doctrine Unveiled (Findhorn Press, 1999), Harvey Tordoff has given to us what Tibetan lamas give to their students. He has done this for the Book of Dzyan. He has taken the stanzas of the Book of Dzyan as translated into English by H. P. Blavatsky and put them into modern English language. The language of the Tibetan scriptures, precisely translated from Sanskrit originals, is largely incomprehensible even to Tibetan monks, let alone to the Tibetan public. So these texts need to be re-stated in comprehensible Tibetan. This is what Tibetan lamas have done over the centuries. This is what Harvey has done for the Book of Dzyan, re-stating its stanzas in comprehensible English.
To put a text into more comprehensible language is quite different from simplifying the text. Neither Tibetan lamas nor Harvey in their re-statements have consciously undertaken simplifications of the text. On the contrary, it is clear that Harvey, like a Tibetan lama, has made an in-depth study of the text in order to be able to re-state its ideas accurately. Any re-statement necessarily involves a certain amount of paraphrasing and interpretation. For example, in stanza 5, verse 2, “The Dzyu becomes Fohat” is paraphrased as “Divine Thought, now manifesting as dynamic creative energy.” Even direct translation involves interpretation.
Re-statements by lamas and others also often include amplification and added explanations. Sometimes these are meant to fill in information found elsewhere in the text. For example, stanza 6, verse 5, says briefly: “At the fourth, the sons are told to create their images. One third refuses.” Background information to this is filled in by Harvey, and the verse is given by him as: “In each of the seven Great Ages of Planet Earth there are seven Races of Man. In the first three Races Man, like Earth, was not yet solid; in this, the fourth Great Age, the Spirit of Man had to clothe itself in Matter; this was the Fall: Not the Fall of Man into sin but the Fall of Spirit into Matter. The Beings who developed in the first three Great Ages had now to experience the world of Matter, and though there were those Creative Spirits who accepted physical incarnation in these hardening bodies, one-third refused.”
Sometimes these additions are based on insights of the writer. A probable example of this is the helpful phrase added to stanza 2, verse 1: “as the elements of hydrogen and oxygen rest in water,” after the statement: “In the unknowable Darkness of absolute perfection the purified Soul of Man rested with your Creators in the bliss of non-being.”
More often these added explanations are based on traditional commentaries. In this book, this may mean an old commentary or catechism quoted by HPB in her commentary on the verse. An example of this is the sentence added to stanza 5, verse 4, not forming part of that verse in the Book of Dzyan: “But even though you see many lights in the sky, and the many lights of Human Souls, perhaps you can sense that there is but one flame.” This is based on a quotation from “the Catechism” given in HPB’s commentary on this verse: “Lift thy head, oh Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?” “I sense one Flame, oh Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it.”
This may also mean drawing on HPB’s own commentary. An example of this is the phrase added to stanza 7, verse 5, also not forming part of that verse in the Book of Dzyan: “but seek not the ‘missing link’, for while Man and beast have much in common yet Man is not descended from the ape.” This, of course, is based on explanations and statements made many times by HPB in The Secret Doctrine.
Very much the same things are seen in the expository works written by Tibetan lamas. They, too, when re-stating the original text frequently bring in additional explanations. These may come from their knowledge of the text as a whole, their knowledge of its system of thought as a whole, their own personal insights, comments that they have heard from their own teachers, and traditional commentaries written on the text. All are intended to make the original text, whether the words of the Buddha or the words of an Indian teacher, comprehensible to their Tibetan audience. These words are often not comprehensible as they are found in the original texts.
The words of the Buddha, and also the words of the Indian treatises on them, are regarded by Tibetan Buddhists as being sacred. They could not be altered, and had to be preserved faithfully. Therefore, rules were made and followed for the accurate and literal translation of the original Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Tibetan. This resulted in an accuracy of translation unparalleled anywhere in the world for an entire body of texts, the Kangyur and Tengyur forming the Tibetan Buddhist canon.
Standardized translation equivalents were used for the technical terms, so that, for example, samādhi is always ting nge ‘dzin, and can always be distinguished from dhyāna, bsam gtan. This is quite unlike in English, where concentration, or meditative absorption, or meditative stabilization, or other such terms, can be and are used for either of these. This makes it difficult to follow the instructions given in texts translated by different translators on the Kālacakra six-branched yoga, in which dhyāna is the second branch and samādhi is the sixth branch. One translator uses one term for the second branch, while another translator uses the same term for the sixth branch.
Even the Sanskrit word order was mostly retained in the Tibetan translations. This accuracy resulted in the faithful preservation of the sacred words of the original texts. At the same time, this very accuracy made these texts largely incomprehensible to native Tibetan speakers without special study. That is why Tibetan lamas would re-state these texts in more comprehensible language for their students. Thus we find that the original Indian texts in their accurate Tibetan translations are normally studied by Tibetans through native Tibetan re-statements of them included in native Tibetan commentaries on them.
It is practically certain that the translation of the Book of Dzyan into Tibetan from the earlier Sanskrit, itself apparently translated from the still earlier Senzar, followed the same rules for accuracy. We are in the same situation as the Tibetans were; for them the sacred words had to be preserved unaltered. It is crucial that the initial translation, whether into Tibetan or into English, be as literally accurate as possible. We cannot afford to allow personal interpretations to enter in at this stage of the transmission. But this means that a re-statement of the text in more comprehensible language will inevitably be needed. Harvey Tordoff has provided this for us in O Lanoo! The Secret Doctrine Unveiled.
When an original language text of the Book of Dzyan is discovered, which it is the goal of this blog to prepare for, this process will start all over again. We will then be in a position to make a more literally accurate translation, and having its original terms will clarify many points. But the new translation is likely to be, if anything, even less comprehensible overall than HPB’s pioneering translation. Hers has a poetic quality that is unlikely to be found in a more literally accurate translation. There will be all the more need for making this text accessible in a comprehensible English version. In the meantime, new Sanskrit and Tibetan texts are being published nearly every month, allowing new insights into the old and often little understood ideas found in the Book of Dzyan.
Category: Noteworthy Books | 3 comments
20
May
The Mystery of the Age of Humanity: Still Unsolved
By David Reigle on May 20, 2012 at 9:49 pm
No one has yet posted a solution to the riddle of the eighteen million years age of physical humanity versus the one hundred and twenty million years age of our current humanity. There seems to be no obvious explanation of why the Tirukkanda Panchanga gave the eighteen million years age for the current Vaivasvata manvantara, quoted in full agreement in The Secret Doctrine (vol. 2, pp. 68-69), while according to all known sources the age of the Vaivasvata manvantara should be one hundred and twenty million years. The answer to this may have been given by H. P. Blavatsky in a fragmentary article published posthumously as “On Cosmic Cycles, Manvantaras, and Rounds” (Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 13, pp. 301-306), if anyone who is good at numbers can figure it out.
In this article, HPB writes (p. 302): “The astrological work states that: — 3. ‘The number of years that elapsed since the beginning of Vaivasvata Manvantara — Equals 18,618,725 years.’” This very same statement is made in The Secret Doctrine (vol. 2, pp. 68-69), where it is taken from the Tirukkanda Panchanga (the one for the kali yuga year 4986; see SD vol. 2, p. 51). So obviously “the astrological work” referred to in HPB’s fragmentary article is the Tirukkanda Panchanga. The calculations that she gives in this article may therefore pertain to how the eighteen million years figure is obtained. We should here recall that, for HPB, this figure is the age of humanity “on our planet D, in the present Round” (p. 302). In the Tirukkanda Panchanga, this figure is apparently given for the age of the Vaivasvata manvantara as a whole, an age that from other sources should be one hundred and twenty million years. I am hoping that someone who is good at numbers can figure this out.
In a small book that Daniel Caldwell called my attention to, Occult Chronology, by James Arther (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1943; http://blavatskyarchives.com/theosophypdfs/early_theosophical_publications_chrono.htm; http://hpb.narod.ru/Occult_Chronology.htm), the author refers to the Tirukkanda Panchanga and says (near the end of the book, no page number): “The Adyar Library is not in possession of a copy, and I have not yet been able to secure one. If anybody is the fortunate possessor of, or can lay his hand on, a copy, it would be greatly appreciated if he would make the Adyar Library the happy recipient of it.” This may have happened. I contacted the Adyar Library and learned from Prof. C. A. Shinde that although the Adyar library does not have the particular issue that HPB used, for kali yuga 4986 or 1884-1885 C.E., it does have several previous years of the Tirukkanda Panchanga, 1870-1881. These should all give the same epochs that the 1884-1885 issue gives. I have requested material from these. When it arrives, it may (or may not) be possible to determine how the Tirukkanda Panchanga arrived at its eighteen million years age of the Vaivasvata manvantara.
The ratio and calculations given by HPB in the fragmentary article referred to above are highly unusual, and do not fit in with other things she gave. Nonetheless, no one has yet been able to figure out how the eighteen million year figure was derived by the normal calculations, using the ratio 1:2:3:4. So perhaps further efforts using the ratio 1:2:3:4:5:6:7 will solve this riddle. Right now, the eighteen million years age of humanity is based only on an occult claim, apparently supported by reference to a once used calendar/almanac, the Tirukkanda Panchanga. But unless we can determine how the Tirukkanda Panchanga arrived at this figure, its evidence is little more than one more unverifiable claim. I have not found any other reference in any other Hindu text supporting this age for the Vaivasvata manvantara.
Category: Occult Chronology | 2 comments
15
May
The Sūrya-siddhānta and the Pañcasiddhāntikā
By David Reigle on May 15, 2012 at 6:09 am
The Sūrya-siddhānta is by far the most widely used Sanskrit text on astronomy. It has been held in great esteem in India. Its opening verses say that an incarnation of the sun taught it to the great asura named Maya at the end of the last kṛta-yuga, or age of perfection. According to the information given in its first chapter on the lengths of the yugas and how many of these ages have passed in this kalpa or world-period, this would have been more than two million years ago. If so, the Sūrya-siddhānta has undergone a lot of change since then. Based solely on what can be seen in the last 1,500 years, material has been deleted from it, material has been added to it, and its arrangement has frequently been altered.
Six verses from the Sūrya-siddhānta that are not found in the now available version (as published with the commentary by Raṅganātha) were quoted by Bhaṭṭotpala in his commentary on Varāha-mihira’s Bṛhat-saṃhitā, chapters 4 and 5. This was first pointed out by Shankar Balakrishna Dikshit in his 1896 Marathi language book, Bharatiya Jyotish Sastra (English translation, vol. 2, 1981, pp. 38-39), where these six verses are quoted and translated. Then, a block of verses after chapter 2, verse 14, of the Sūrya-siddhānta gives the same series of numbers for trigonometry sines that the Āryabhaṭīya gives, and so on. They interrupt an older theory, which resumes in verse 52. Prabodh Chandra Sengupta, who pointed this out in his new Introduction to the 1935 Calcutta reprint of the 1860 Ebenezer Burgess translation (p. xix), therefore thinks that this material was copied from the Āryabhaṭīya and interpolated into the Sūrya-siddhānta. Raṅganātha in his commentary on the Sūrya-siddhānta, completed in 1603 C.E., had centuries earlier pointed out interpolated verses (see Dikshit, op. cit., p. 43). Bimalā Prasāda Siddhānta Sarasvatī’s 1894 or 1896 edition of the Sūrya-siddhānta in Bengali script has twenty-one additional verses in chapter 14 between verses 23 and 24 (see Sengupta, op. cit., p. xxx). David Pingree, who has catalogued all known Sanskrit astronomy manuscripts (Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, Series A, 5 vols., 1970-1994, unfinished), tells us about the Sūrya-siddhānta that: “Virtually every commentator, however, has rearranged the text, adding and subtracting verses ad libitum” (David Pingree, Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature, 1981, p. 23).
What has shown convincingly that we do not have the original Sūrya-siddhānta intact, and that even its astronomical constants have been somewhat altered, was the publication in 1889 of the Pañcasiddhāntikā by Varāha-mihira (circa 550 C.E.). As its name implies, the Pañca-siddhāntikā is a summary of five (pañca) astronomical treatises (siddhānta), all very old, including the Sūrya-siddhānta. While the summary given in the Pañcasiddhāntikā of the Sūrya-siddhānta shows “that the treatise of that name known to Varāha Mihira agreed with the modern Sūrya Siddhānta in its fundamental features,” yet “we cannot fail to notice that in certain points the teaching of the old Sūrya Siddhānta must have differed from the correspondent doctrines of its modern representative” (G. Thibaut and Sudhākara Dvivedī, The Pañchasiddhāntikā, 1889, reprint 1968, p. xii; on this see pp. xii-xx). These differences appear in the astronomical constants given for the various planets, etc., and the calculations made from them. The astronomical constants found in the older Sūrya-siddhānta as summarized in the Pañcasiddhāntikā differ somewhat from those given in the now extant Sūrya-siddhānta.
The Pañcasiddhāntikā is a karaṇa text, as opposed to a siddhānta text, such as the Sūrya-siddhānta. While a siddhānta gives the full astronomical theory, a karaṇa is a more brief manual for practical use, giving only what is required for making calculations from the latest astronomical epoch in use. Based on this fact, Sudhi Kant Bharadwaj attempted to show that the differences in astronomical constants between the old and the modern Sūrya-siddhānta are due only to the brief karaṇa version abbreviating the numbers given in the full siddhānta version (Sūryasiddhānta: An Astro-Linguistic Study, 1991, pp. 24-33). Thibaut had considered this possibility, and gave reasons for rejecting it in his 1889 “Introduction” (op. cit., pp. xii-xx). Prabodh Chandra Sengupta in his 1935 “Introduction” tabulated the differences between the astronomical constants given in the two versions (op. cit., pp. ix-xii). He showed that the astronomical constants given in the old Sūrya-siddhānta mostly agree with those given in Brahmagupta’s Khaṇḍa-khādyaka (first Sanskrit edition published in 1925). Sengupta showed in a 1930 paper (“Aryabhata’s Lost Work”) that the astronomical constants found in the Khaṇḍa-khādyaka were taken from a lost work by Āryabhaṭa I, author of the Āryabhaṭīya. After the discovery of the Mahābhāskarīya (announced in Bibhutibhusan Datta’s 1930 article, “The Two Bhāskaras”), it was found that these same astronomical constants taken from a lost work by Āryabhaṭa I are preserved in the Mahābhāskarīya, chapter 7 (first Sanskrit edition published in 1945). The agreement with this old set of astronomical constants has convinced most researchers that the astronomical constants given in the old Sūrya-siddhānta accord with a specific system, and are not mere abbreviations of those given in the now extant Sūrya-siddhānta.
In addition to this, Sengupta then described differences in the methods of calculation used in the two versions of the Sūrya-siddhānta (pp. xx-xxvi). He showed that methods used in the modern Sūrya-siddhānta agree with methods used by Āryabhaṭa I and Brahmagupta. This means that someone after the time of Varāha-mihira’s summary of the old Sūrya-siddhānta in the Pañcasiddhāntikā introduced these methods into the Sūrya-siddhānta that we now have. Not only was the modern Sūrya-siddhānta revised by someone, Sengupta believed that Varāha-mihira revised the previous Sūrya-siddhānta. So even the old Sūrya-siddhānta as summarized in the Pañcasiddhāntikā is a revision of a yet older Sūrya-siddhānta. Bina Chatterjee, in her 1970 Sanskrit edition and English translation of Brahmagupta’s Khaṇḍakhādyaka, agreed with Sengupta, and provided further evidence for this, with further charts of comparison (vol. 1, pp. 279-285). Kripa Shankar Shukla did not agree with Sengupta on this particular point, but he agreed that not only the astronomical constants but also the methods vary between the two versions of the Sūrya-siddhānta. He gave another helpful set of charts comparing the two versions, adding variants from the modern version as preserved in two different sets of commentaries, in his English introduction to his 1957 Sanskrit edition of The Sūrya-siddhānta with the Commentary of Paramesvara (pp. 15-27).
The Pañcasiddhāntikā, our sole source on the old version of the Sūrya-siddhānta, was itself long lost. It was recovered from two very faulty manuscripts in the 1889 Sanskrit edition and English translation by G. Thibaut and Sudhākara Dvivedī. So the Sanskrit text as found in the best of these two manuscripts was given alongside a heavily emended text. The extensive and sometimes extreme emendations were justified by the need to make sense of an otherwise partly incomprehensible text. Eighty years later, a new attempt to make sense of this text was made by O. Neugebauer and D. Pingree in their Sanskrit edition and English translation (The Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira, 2 vols., 1970, 1971). The few additional manuscripts discovered since the first two were copies of the same faulty exemplars. From these highly respected scholars we expected to get as careful and accurate an edition as could be made from the available materials. But as said about the Neugebauer-Pingree edition by K. V. Sarma in his “Introduction” to yet a third Sanskrit edition and English translation: “Often the emendations are wilder than those of Thibaut-Sudhakar Dvivedi” (Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira, trans. by T. S. Kuppanna Sastry, ed. by K. V. Sarma, 1993, p. xviii).
A prime example of the wild and unwarranted emendations to the Pañcasiddhāntikā is its often-quoted verse 4 of chapter 1. Thibaut and Sudhākara Dvivedī emended the word tithi (or tithaḥ) to kṛtaḥ and translated: “The Siddhānta made by Pauliśa is accurate, near to it stands the Siddhānta proclaimed by Romaka; more accurate is the Sāvitra (Saura); the two remaining ones are far from the truth.” Neugebauer and Pingree emended the word tithi (or tithaḥ) to stvatha and translated: “The Pauliśa is accurate; that which was pronounced by Romaka is near it; the Sāvitra (i.e. the Sūryasiddhānta) is more accurate; the remaining two have strayed far away (from the truth).” Thus, through this often-quoted verse, everyone was led to believe that the accuracy of the Paitāmaha-siddhānta and the Vāsiṣṭha-siddhānta was disparaged by Varāha-mihira. But Kuppanna Sastry and Sarma did not emend the word tithi, and translated: “The tithi resulting from the Pauliśa is tolerably accurate and that of the Romaka approximate to that. The tithi of the Saura is very accurate. But that of the remaining two (viz. the Vāsiṣṭha and the Paitāmaha) have slipped far away (from the real).” In other words, it was only the accuracy of their calculation of the tithi or lunar day that was disparaged, not their overall accuracy. Thus, anyone using the Pañcasiddhāntikā today should use only the Kuppanna Sastry-Sarma edition/translation, because the remaining two, the Thibaut-Sudhākara Dvivedī and the Neugebauer-Pingree editions/translations, have strayed far away from the truth.
For the extant Sūrya-siddhānta, only three different English translations have been published so far. All of these are more than a century old. The first of these was made by Rev. Ebenezer Burgess, revised by William Dwight Whitney, and published in 1860. The second of these was made by Bāpū Deva Śāstrī independently of the Burgess translation, and published in 1861. The third of these was made by Bimalā Prasāda Siddhānta Sarasvatī from Sanskrit to Bengali and published in 1894 or 1896, and then translated from Bengali to English and published in 2007. All three translations utilized the commentary by Raṅganātha to interpret the verses of the Sūrya-siddhānta. The Burgess translation was reprinted in Calcutta in 1935, edited by Phanindralal Gangooly. This was again reprinted in India more recently, and is sometimes listed under the name of the editor, even though it is the translation by Burgess. A 2001 book, The Sūryasiddhānta (The Astronomical Principles of the Text), by A. K. Chakravarty, includes a rearranged translation. It has adopted the translation by Burgess.
Sometimes students are inclined to distrust a translation of a Sanskrit text by a Christian missionary, and to trust a translation made by an Indian pandit. The present case, however, is a little different. My impression is that all three translations are good, but the Burgess/Whitney translation is more literally accurate in comparison with the Sanskrit than the other two. Bāpū Deva Śāstrī used a somewhat interpretive style of translation, as was common at that time. The translation by Bimalā Prasāda Siddhānta Sarasvatī is a translation of a translation, so for that reason alone it is less literally accurate in comparison with the Sanskrit. This does not mean, in either case, that their translations are inaccurate. It means that for someone trying to follow the Sanskrit, the Burgess/Whitney translation will be more helpful. The Burgess/Whitney translation also provides extensive notes and examples of calculations, while the other two translations do not.
An example of the difference between the three translations may be seen in chap. 1, verse 3, stating what the asura Maya asked the sun about. He wanted to know the jyotiṣāṃ gati-kāraṇam, the cause (kāraṇam) of the motion (gati) of the heavenly bodies (jyotiṣām). The Burgess/Whitney translation is literally accurate, adding only “namely” to this phrase; thus Maya is “desirous to know . . . the cause, namely, of the motion of the heavenly bodies.” In the Bāpū Deva Śāstrī translation, this phrase is interpreted, and becomes simply “Astronomy”; that is, Maya is “desirous of obtaining . . . knowledge of Astronomy.” In the Bimalā Prasāda Siddhānta Sarasvatī translation of a translation, “cause” becomes transformed into “information”; thus what Maya desires to acquire is knowledge that is complete with “the information about the motion of the heavenly bodies.” The latter two translations give the general idea accurately enough, but the Burgess/Whitney translation gives the exact idea.
Rev. Ebenezer Burgess went to India as a missionary in 1839. He diligently applied himself to the study of Indian astronomy and its primary text, the Sūrya-siddhānta, throughout his years in India, in order to produce a textbook on astronomy in the Marathi language. He writes in his “Introductory Note” to the translation of the Sūrya-siddhānta that: “My first rough draft of the translation and notes was made while I was still in India, with the aid of Brahmans who were familiar with the Sanskrit and well versed in Hindu astronomical science.” When he returned to the United States, he turned it over to William Dwight Whitney, a brilliant linguist and competent Sanskrit scholar. Whitney’s touch is evident throughout, in two ways. First, he made the translation follow the Sanskrit closely; that is, he made it literally accurate. Only few errors have been noted by later scholars and pandits. Second, sharing the prejudices of his time, he made comments in the notes showing the superiority of Western knowledge and the inferiority of Indian knowledge. These did not, however, affect the translation.
The translation by Burgess/Whitney was highly enough regarded in India that it was reprinted by the University of Calcutta in 1935. The “Note” that introduces this reprint says: “Owing to the time, thought and patient diligence that he and his colleagues devoted to the task, this translation stands out as a model of research work in the field of Hindu astronomy.” This reprint included a new 45-page Introduction by eminent Indian scholar of Hindu astronomy, Prabodh Chandra Sengupta. Sengupta there concludes (p. li): “Burgess’s translation, indeed, gives a very clear and complete exposition and discussion of every rule that it contains together with illustrations also.” Moreover, Sengupta adds that “his views about the originality of Hindu astronomy are the sanest.” Sengupta is referring to Burgess’s view that the astronomy of the Sūrya-siddhānta was original to India (see “Concluding Note by the Translator”), in disagreement with Whitney, who thought that astronomy came to India from Greece. The Burgess/Whitney translation was originally published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 6, 1860, pp. 141-498. This is now available from JSTOR, as part of their free “Early Journal Content” offering, at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/592174. It had been reprinted in 1978 by Wizards Bookshelf in the Secret Doctrine Reference Series.
The Sanskrit text of the Sūrya-siddhānta was first published, along with the commentary by Raṅganātha, in 1859 in the Bibliotheca Indica series, Calcutta. It was edited by Fitzedward Hall, known for his care and accuracy, just as Indian printing is known for its many typographical errors. This resulted in a long list of errata given at the back of this book, something done by Hall but skipped by many others. The Sūrya-siddhānta with the commentary by Raṅganātha was again printed in Calcutta in 1871, with no editor statement. It appears by its format to be a re-typeset reprint of Hall’s edition. The Sūrya-siddhānta with the commentary by Raṅganātha was once again printed in Calcutta in 1891, edited by Jībānanda Vidyāsāgara. This says dvitīya-saṃskaraṇam, “second edition,” allowing us to think that perhaps he was responsible for the 1871 edition as well.
The Sūrya-siddhānta with a modern Sanskrit commentary by Sudhākara Dvivedī was published in Calcutta in 1911 in the Bibliotheca Indica series. The Sūrya-siddhānta with a modern Sanskrit commentary by Kapileśwara Chaudhary was published in Varanasi in 1946 in the Kashi Sanskrit Series. The Sūrya-siddhānta with the traditional Sanskrit commentary by Parameśvara, edited by Kripa Shankar Shukla, was published in 1957 by the University of Lucknow. The Sūrya-siddhānta with the traditional Sanskrit commentary by Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa, edited by Śrīcandra Pāṇḍeya, was published in 1991 by the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University. There are a few other Sanskrit editions of the Sūrya-siddhānta, apparently secondary or derivative, that I have not seen.
The Sanskrit text of the Sūrya-siddhānta is included in the 2007 English translation of Bimalā Prasāda Siddhānta Sarasvatī, but in Bengali script rather than devanāgarī, and also in Roman script (but with so many errors that it cannot be relied on). The Sanskrit text of the Sūrya-siddhānta in Roman script is also included as an appendix in A. K. Chakravarty’s 2001 book, The Sūryasiddhānta (The Astronomical Principles of the Text). Several of these Sanskrit editions and English translations are now available at the Digital Library of India.
Category: Noteworthy Books, Occult Chronology | No comments yet
8
May
Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race
By David Reigle on May 8, 2012 at 6:08 am
Like Theosophy, traditional Hinduism accepts a much greater antiquity for humanity than does modern science at present. Two members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, a modern organization based on the Vaishnava tradition within Hinduism, set out to “critically examine the prevailing account of human origins and the methods by which it was established” (p. xxxvi). Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson did this in their large 1993 book, Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (1996 first edition, revised, Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, xxxviii, 914 pages). This book provides a wealth of archeological evidence for a much earlier date of physical humanity than is accepted by current science. At the same time, the evidence given in this book provides a subtle critique of current science for its not altogether objective handling of evidence on this topic, described by Cremo as a knowledge filter.
The amount of material the authors gathered was far more than they expected to find. But the mere bulk of Forbidden Archeology was daunting to many readers. Therefore a condensed version of this book was published in 1994 as The Hidden History of the Human Race (xxi, 322 pages).
The scientific community could not ignore Forbidden Archeology. They did respond to it, primarily in book reviews. These and other responses were gathered into a 1998 book by Michael A. Cremo, Forbidden Archeology’s Impact, with a cover statement or subtitle: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic (2001 second edition, xxxiv, 569 pages). Among the responses to Forbidden Archeology was one book, The Antiquity of Man: Artifactual, Fossil and Gene Records Explored, by Michael Brass (Baltimore: AmErica House, 2002, 220 pages). The Antiquity of Man attempted to counter Forbidden Archeology.
The 900 pages of Forbidden Archeology are almost entirely devoted to giving evidence. Much of this is cited from earlier journals, scientific reports, etc. Forbidden Archeology concludes (p. 750):
“Combining these findings with those from the preceding chapters, we conclude that the total evidence, including fossil bones and artifacts, is most consistent with the view that anatomically modern humans have coexisted with other primates for tens of millions of years.”
Because the authors found much more material than expected, they had to postpone giving their alternative view of human origins. As stated in their Introduction to Forbidden Archeology (p. xxxvi):
“Our research program led to results we did not anticipate, and hence a book much larger than originally envisioned. Because of this, we have not been able to develop in this volume our ideas about an alternative to current theories of human origins. We are therefore planning a second volume relating our extensive research results in this area to our Vedic source material.”
This second volume appeared in 2003 under the title, Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory, by Michael A. Cremo (xxx, 554 pages). As they earlier pointed out, they use “Vedic” in the broad sense to include the purāṇas and itihāsas. The actual text they draw on primarily is the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The last chapter of Human Devolution is titled, “Human Devolution: A Vedic Account.” It begins:
“Let us now review the path we have taken. The evidence documented in Forbidden Archeology shows that humans of our type have existed on this planet for the duration of the current day of Brahma, about two billion years.”
They had not given this number of years in Forbidden Archeology, but shortly after its publication Michael Cremo gave it in a lecture, “Puranic Time and the Archeological Record,” at the World Archeological Congress 3, New Delhi, 1994. This lecture is reprinted in Forbidden Archeology’s Impact. There, after giving the figures for the lengths of the yugas (the four totaling 4,320,000 years), and then of the kalpa or a day of Brahma (4,320,000,000 years), he says (p. 6):
“According to Puranic accounts, we are now in the twenty-eighth yuga cycle of the seventh manvantara period of the present day of Brahma. This would give the inhabited earth an age of about 2 billion years.”
This, of course, is quite in agreement with what Theosophy teaches, as may be seen in H. P. Blavatsky’s book, The Secret Doctrine (e.g., vol. 2, p. 68). I did not, however, find any mention in any of these books of the eighteen million year figure for the age of physical humanity given in The Secret Doctrine (e.g., vol. 2, p. 69), and found in the Tamil Tirukkanda Panchanga. But this is a specific question within the larger question of the antiquity of humanity, on which traditional Hinduism and Theosophy agree. Students of Theosophy are greatly indebted to Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson for their tremendous labor in doing this research, placing the gathered evidence before the public, capturing the attention of the scientific community with it, and giving thinking people something to think about. In brief, they have done our homework for us on this important topic.
Category: Noteworthy Books | No comments yet
6
May
Chronology : Today Science Time-line
By Jacques Mahnich on May 6, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Current Science has developed many disciplines to assess Earth history. Obviously, this is based on the Universe, Solar and Earth genesys models, with all possible hypothesis, starting with the Big Bang theory, the solar nebulae accretion, and the earth generation from planetoides accretion and collisions. What is of some value is the consistancy between many observations and models like baryogenesis and the quantity and diversity of elements in the universe and on the earth. It gives some credibility to it. The purpose of this post is to give the scientific understanding in regard with earth history and life genesis vs time in order to compare with the traditions time-lines. It comes from Geology, and it is called the stratigraphic scale.
4 major eras have been identified (numbers are in million of years) : Precambrian (4,600 M to 550 M), Paleozoic (550 M to 250 M), Mesozoic (250 M to 65 M), and Cenozoic (65 M to now).
They are divided in sub-periods which may be of some interests in our search, in regard with life development on earth. They will be listed together with the sequence of events.
According to lastest findings and models :
- Earth accretion process started 4,600 M years ago. Accretion started when the protosolar cloud temperature decreased, triggering materials condensation. Then the combined energy of gravitational collapse and radioactive elements disintegration generated the fusion process, melting the compound of materials. The final cooling phase creates the different layers of the earth. The complete process is supposed to have lasted for 100 M years. (to be compared to the 300 M years from the SD)
- Life emerged first on earth between 4,600M and 3,500M years ago (blue-green algae) – The SD says that first appearance of “humanity” on planetary chain was 1,664 M years ago.
- Invertebrates and lower vegetals started 2,500 M years ago
- First vertebrate (fish) appeared during Cambrian era ( 550 M years ago )
- First batracian = Carboniferous era, 350 M years ago
- First reptiles = Permian era, 280 M years ago
- First mammal = Trias era, 235 M years ago
- First birds = Jurassic era, 200 M years ago
- Oldest man discovered = Pleistocene era, 1.8 M years ago. The S.D says that the human period, up, to year 1887 lasted for 18.6 M years.
Category: Occult Chronology | No comments yet
5
May
A Critical Edition of the Viṣṇu-purāṇa
By David Reigle on May 5, 2012 at 6:08 am
As correctly pointed out by critic William Emmette Coleman, the Vishnu Purana is the single major Eastern source for H. P. Blavatsky’s 1888 book, The Secret Doctrine. This text is therefore of great importance for the study of The Secret Doctrine and its basis, the “Book of Dzyan.” In one of the major publishing events in modern India, a critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the Viṣṇu-purāṇa was published in two large volumes, 1997 and 1999. A critical edition is prepared by comparing a number of different manuscripts, recording their variant readings in notes, and choosing the best readings to constitute the text of the critical edition. This is a real, large-scale critical edition, in which 43 Sanskrit manuscripts were gathered and collated, and 27 were chosen from which to prepare the Sanskrit edition. It is:
The Critical Edition of the Viṣṇupurāṇam, edited by M. M. Pathak, 2 vols., Vadodara: Oriental Institute, 1997, 1999.
This critical edition followed upon two previous critical editions of Sanskrit texts produced in India, that of the Mahābhārata, published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, and that of the Rāmāyaṇa, published by the Oriental Institute, Vadodara (Baroda). In fact, it was the preparation of the critical edition of the Rāmāyaṇa by this same institute that developed the skills and expertise to undertake the critical edition of the Viṣṇu-purāṇa. At present, this book is still in print, and it is not expensive. It was about $15.00 when I got my copy, although the shipping will be twice this much for these heavy volumes. It can be ordered from Indian booksellers such as BibliaImpex.com.
All scholars citing translations of Sanskrit texts are expected to refer to the Sanskrit original, because translations are inexact. From 1999 onward, anyone citing the Viṣṇu-purāṇa will be expected to refer to this Sanskrit critical edition. Students of Theosophy will need it for use in research on the Book of Dzyan. Our task is difficult enough in working with secret books whose originals have not yet been discovered. We do not need to give our critics any more reason to consider us uninformed and our work unreliable.
Category: Noteworthy Books | 1 comment
2
May
Occult Chronology: The Mystery of the Age of Humanity
By David Reigle on May 2, 2012 at 6:49 am
The age of the world as taught in Hindu Sanskrit texts, which is in general agreement with that taught in The Secret Doctrine, can be readily ascertained from the data given in the Hindu Sanskrit texts. This is not the case, however, for the age of humanity. The basis of the age of our present humanity as taught in The Secret Doctrine, in agreement with that taught in the Hindu Tamil Tirukkanda Panchanga for Kali Yuga 4986, is a mystery. We do not know either the data that formed the basis of the calculation, or the method used in making the calculation, of the 18,618,725 years up till Kali Yuga 4986, or 1884-1885 C.E., given for this (BCW 13.302; given in SD 2.69 as 18,618,728 up to the year 1887). Since this age of humanity as more than eighteen million years is of central importance to the anthropogenesis taught in the Book of Dzyan, I request that interested persons try to solve this problem.
The figure given from the Tirukkanda Panchanga for the age of the world (SD 2.68) can clearly be traced to the Sūrya-siddhānta, as can the deduction of the time taken for “creation” (sṛṣṭi) at the beginning of the kalpa (17,064,000 years) in the second figure given from it (1,664,500,987). The Secret Doctrine also claims the author of the Sūrya-siddhānta, Asuramaya, as one of its two sources. So we might reasonably expect the data regarding the more than eighteen million years figure for the age of our present humanity to be found in that book. I have not yet found such data there, or figured out how to deduce this figure from the data given there. The English translation by Ebenezer Burgess, despite being published in 1860, appears to be accurate for the most part. It was published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. This older material from this journal is now available free from JSTOR. Here is the link to this translation: http://www.jstor.org/stable/
A kalpa (eon) is four billion, three hundred and twenty million (4,320,000,000) years.
One thousand mahā-yugas make a kalpa (chap. 1, verse 20); therefore:
A mahā-yuga (great age) is four million, three hundred and twenty thousand (4,320,000) years (chap. 1, verse 15).
Seventy-one mahā-yugas (yielding 306,720,000), to which must be added a sandhi period (1,728,000) at the end, make a manvantara (chap. 1, verse 18); therefore:
A manvantara (period of a manu) is three hundred and eight million, four hundred and forty-eight thousand years (308,448,000).
Fourteen manvantaras (yielding 4,318,272,000), to which must be added a sandhi period (1,728,000) at the beginning, make a kalpa (chap. 1, verse 19); i.e., 4,320,000,000 years.
Of the present kalpa, six manvantaras are past (6 x 308,448,000 = 1,850,688,000), and of the present Vaivasvata manvantara, twenty-seven mahā-yugas are past (27 x 4,320,000 = 116,640,000) (chap. 1, verse 22). Also past is the sandhi period (1,728,000) at the beginning of the kalpa. This yields 1,969,056,000 years. At the time the Sūrya-siddhānta was taught to the asura named Maya, the kṛta-yuga (1,728,000) of the twenty-eighth mahā-yuga had also passed (chap. 1, verse 23). This yields 1,970,784,000 years. From this must be deducted the time taken for “creation” at the beginning of the kalpa (17,064,000) (chap. 1, verse 24; note the typo here, “plants” for “planets,” uncorrected in the 1935 Calcutta reprint edition, and copied uncorrected in A. K. Chakravarty’s 2001 book, The Sūryasiddhānta, p. 64). This yields 1,953,720,000 years.
This whole calculation is summarized in chap. 1, verses 45-47, giving the result in word numbers so that there is no mistake: khacatuṣkayamādryagniśararandhraniśākarāḥ. That is: kha-catuṣka, a group of four skies, where sky or space equals 0, so 0000; yama, twins, 2; adri, mountain (the seven mountains), so 7; agni, fire (the three fires), so 3; śara, arrow (the five arrows), so 5; randhra, opening (the nine apertures of the body), so 9; niśākara, “night-maker,” the moon, so 1. Then all these digits must be read backwards, yielding 1,953,720,000. This is the number of years from the beginning of the epoch (not of the kalpa itself) to the end of the last kṛta-yuga.
To come up to the year 1884 C.E., we must add to this the time of the tretā-yuga (1,296,000), the dvāpara-yuga (864,000), and the number of years of the kali-yuga that have passed (4,986) of this twenty-eighth mahā-yuga, a total of 2,164,986 years. This yields 1,955,884,986 years. Once we correct the typo of 6 for 9 in the hundreds place, as discussed in the previous post, this is essentially the same figure as that given in BCW 13.301 (1,955,884,685) and SD 2.68 (1,955,884,687), both derived from the Tirukkanda Panchanga. This is the number of years from the beginning of the epoch to the year 1884 C.E.
Now we want to find out the age of just our own Vaivasvata humanity, the number of years that have elapsed in the Vaivasvata manvantara. We can do this in two ways. Using the data from the Sūrya-siddhānta, that twenty-seven complete mahā-yugas have already passed in the Vaivasvata manvantara (chap. 1, verse 22), we calculate 27 x 4,320,000 = 116,640,000 years. To this we must add, of the twenty-eighth mahā-yuga, the passed kṛta-yuga (1,728,000), the passed tretā-yuga (1,296,000), the passed dvāpara-yuga (864,000), and the elapsed years of the kali-yuga up to the year 1884 C.E. (4986), or 3,892,986 years. This yields 120,532,986 for the number of years that have elapsed from the beginning of the Vaivasvata manvantara to the year 1884 C.E.
This should match the number arrived at earlier by calculating from the beginning of the epoch to the year 1884 C.E. (1,955,884,986), minus the number of years up to the beginning of the Vaivasvata manvantara. For the number of years up to the beginning of the Vaivasvata manvantara, we get the following: the six past manvantaras (6 x 308,448,000 = 1,850,688,000), plus the sandhi period at the beginning of the kalpa (1,728,000), yields 1,852,416,000; minus the time taken for “creation” at the beginning of the kalpa (17,064,000), yields 1,835,352,000 years. Indeed, 1,955,884,986 minus 1,835,352,000 gives us 120,532,986 years. This is merely a check to be sure that the figures we are using match.
So we have 120,532,986 elapsed years of the Vaivasvata manvantara up to the year 1884 C.E., from which we must figure out how the 18,618,725 year age of physical humanity was derived. Subtracting 18,618,725 years from 120,532,986 years, we have 101,914,261 years to account for. We can try to do this in two ways. We may try to do this in terms of the yugas, which is the only information that the Sūrya-siddhānta gives us. Or we may try to do this in terms of the root-races, since we are told that the 18,618,725 year age of physical humanity is to the middle of the third root-race, and we are now past the middle of the fifth root-race.
According to The Secret Doctrine, each “round” or manvantara has 49 root-races, with seven on each of seven postulated “globes.” Since a Theosophical “round” equals two manus or manvantaras (because the second of these is a “seed” manu), the Sūrya-siddhānta information that we are in the seventh or Vaivasvata manvantara agrees with The Secret Doctrine information that we are in the fourth round (SD 2.309). But neither the Sūrya-siddhānta (chap. 1), nor the Viṣṇu-purāṇa (book 1, chap. 3, and book 3, chap. 1), nor The Laws of Manu (chap. 1) speak about 49 root-races or about seven globes. Yet if we cannot calculate how the 18,618,725 year figure was derived by the Tirukkanda Panchanga from just the yuga information, then we may try calculating this figure from the root-race information.
We may recall that for the age of humanity in this kalpa (also called a “day of Brahmā,” and consisting of fourteen manvantaras), the Tirukkanda Panchanga gave 1,664,500,987 years (SD 2.68). This represents a deduction of about 300,000,000 years from the beginning of evolution (1,955,884,987 years), allowing for the kingdoms up to the human kingdom to evolve. This 300 million years is apparently referred to in the stanzas from the Book of Dzyan given in The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, stanza II, śloka 5, “The wheel whirled for thirty crores more,” and śloka 6, “. . . After thirty crores she turned round.” A crore, Sanskrit koṭi, is ten million; so thirty crores is three hundred million. This deduction as made in the Tirukkanda Panchanga is 291,384,000 years, the length of a manvantara (308,448,000) minus the time taken for “creation” (sṛṣṭi) at the beginning of the kalpa (17,064,000 years). But I have not found in the Sūrya-siddhānta any mention that such a deduction for the evolution of the lower kingdoms should be made. So perhaps the compilers of the Tirukkanda Panchanga did have access to a more complete manuscript of the Sūrya-siddhānta than is now available, as Blavatsky suggests (SD 2.50-51, 67).
However we do it, via the yugas or via the root-races, we must account for the 101,914,261 preceding years, and the 18,618,725 year age of physical humanity, totaling 120,532,986 elapsed years of the Vaivasvata manvantara up to the year 1884 C.E. The 101,914,261 preceding years would be distributed over the seven root-races of the first globe, the seven root-races of the second globe, the seven root-races of the third globe, and the first two and a half root-races of our present fourth globe. That is, the 101,914,261 years would be distributed over twenty-three and a half root-races, while the 18,618,725 years would cover the period of about two root-races. We must figure out how the Tirukkanda Panchanga arrived at the 18,618,725 year figure. Can it be derived from the Sūrya-siddhānta? What is the data that formed the basis of the calculation of the 18,618,725 years up till Kali Yuga 4986 (1884-1885 C.E.)? What is the method used in making the calculation of the 18,618,725 years up till Kali Yuga 4986?
Category: Occult Chronology | 8 comments
29
April
Occult Chronology: The Age of the World, part 2
By David Reigle on April 29, 2012 at 5:33 am
Regarding HPB’s fragmentary article, “On Cosmic Cycles, Manvantaras, and Rounds” (BCW 13.301-306), Daniel Caldwell called my attention to a discussion of this by David Pratt. This is part of his larger article, “Secret Cycles,” section 9, titled, “The unfinished article controversy” (http://davidpratt.info/
First, in the 1,955,884,687 (SD 2.68, or 1,955,884,685, BCW 13.301) years given from the Tirukkanda Panchanga for Kali Yuga 4986 there is apparently a typographical error. The last three digits, 687, should be 987. David Pratt reports that Hans Malmstedt suggested that the 9 was simply placed upside down, making 6, by the typesetter. This error, however, would have occurred before The Secret Doctrine was set in type, as we now know from the BCW 13 article (which gives the same number, but two years earlier). This article was not published until 1958, so would not have been known to Malmstedt, writing in 1933. So the error would have been either a typographical error in the Tamil Tirukkanda Panchanga itself, or a clerical error in the English translation of relevant parts of this made for HPB. It is unfortunate that no copy of this pañcāṅga can now be found. When all the rest of the figure can be fully explained, it seems certain that this is merely a typographical error, and that the 6 should be 9.
For the figure 1,664,500,987, gotten after 300,000,000 was supposed to have been subtracted from 1,955,884,687 (SD 2.68), this yields 291,384,000 after changing the typo 687 to 987. As Malmstedt has shown, this matches the length of a full manvantara, 308,448,000 years, less the time taken for “creation” (sṛṣṭi, emanation or manifestation) at the beginning of the kalpa, 17,064,000 years. This last figure, from Sūrya-siddhānta 1.24, is an important part of its calculations, even though some other astronomical treatises do not use it (e.g., Brahmagupta’s Brahmasphuṭa-siddhānta, and Bhāskara II’s Siddhānta-śiromaṇi). This shows that the figure 300,000,000 given by HPB (SD 2.68) was merely an approximation, whether of 291,384,000 or of 308,448,000 years. The fact that the Tirukkanda Panchanga uses the former figure is another demonstration that it, like other pañcāṅgas, was based on the Sūrya-siddhānta.
Then, the figure given by Dayanand Saraswati and the Arya Samaj, 1,960,852,987 years, is also explained. Malmstedt, as reported by David Pratt, showed that it is the standard number, but it does not include the numbers for the sandhi periods. Since the Sūrya-siddhānta prescribes calculating for these sandhi periods, we see that Dayanand has disregarded this. He has also disregarded the time taken for the “creation” given in the Sūrya-siddhānta. In other words, Dayanand does not follow the Sūrya-siddhānta.
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26
April
Occult Chronology: The Age of the World
By David Reigle on April 26, 2012 at 7:08 pm
In The Secret Doctrine (1888), H. P. Blavatsky gives a figure for the age of the cosmos or solar system (SD 2.68), derived from the Tirukkanda Panchanga for Kali Yuga 4986, or 1884-1885 C.E. (SD 2.51), as 1,955,884,687 years. In a posthumously published writing fragment tentatively titled “On Cosmic Cycles, Manvantaras, and Rounds” (Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 13, pp. 301-306), HPB gave the same figure, obviously from the same source, but before it was adapted for 1887 by adding two years to it, 1,955,884,685. Here, rather than the age of the cosmos as a whole, or narrowed down to the age of the solar system, she applies this figure to our planetary chain (the seven rounds). Then, presumably in support of such an unusually large figure, she notes (SD 2.68 fn.) that the school of Dayanand Saraswati, the Arya Samaj, on the cover of their Arya Magazine for a similar year, gives the date, “Aryan era 1,960,852,987.”
The Tirukkanda Panchanga is a calendar or almanac, written in Tamil, and published in south India. Pañcāṅgas are published throughout India for each year. This one, HPB says, was compiled “from fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean astronomer, and found in Southern India” (SD 2.50). The “Atlantean astronomer” is Asuramaya, as she says in the section, “Two Antediluvian Astronomers” (SD 2.47-51). She takes for granted that her readers know what book Asuramaya wrote, the Sūrya-siddhānta, so does not there mention it. From a secret book ascribed to Pesh-Hun or Nārada, called the “Mirror of Futurity,” and from the work of Asuramaya (i.e., the original Sūrya-siddhānta), she tells us, come “the figures of our cycles” (SD 2.49). I say “the original Sūrya-siddhānta,” because we know that the current one is a later redaction. We know this because the old Sūrya-siddhānta as summarized in Varāha-mihira’s Pañca-siddhāntikā differs significantly from the current one.
The Sūrya-siddhānta is quite the most influential astronomical work in India, and only in the last century has it become superseded in many circles by modern astronomy. The figures given in the Tirukkanda Panchanga, like other traditional pañcāṅgas (Indian calendars, almanacs), and also the date given in the Arya Magazine, are based on the Sūrya-siddhānta. It gives (chapter 1, verse 47) 1,953,720,000 solar years since the beginning of the kalpa (eon) to the end of the last kṛta-yuga (“perfect age”), less the time taken for “creation” (sṛṣṭi, emanation or manifestation) at the beginning of the kalpa, 17,064,000 years. This figure, 1,953,720,000, is possibly original, because it is given in a verse using word-numbers. This avoids typographical errors that are frequent when using numerals. From this figure, one can calculate to the beginning of the Śaka era (78 C.E.), much used in India, as 1,955,883,179 years. Similarly, Ebenezer Burgess, in his English translation of the Sūrya-siddhānta, published in 1860, calculated to the year 1859 C.E., the figure 1,955,884,960 years (p. 173). This is only a few hundred years different from the figure given in the Tirukkanda Panchanga, and adopted by HPB in The Secret Doctrine.
Burgess noted (pp. 142, 144) that the manuscripts of the Sūrya-siddhānta used by him had somewhat different readings and arrangement than the first published Sanskrit edition (edited by Fitzedward Hall and published in 1859 in the Bibliotheca Indica series, Calcutta). This same basic text, as commented on by Raṅganātha, was also published in Calcutta in 1871, and again there in 1891 edited by Jīvānanda Vidyāsāgara. Despite the fact that at least 36 Sanskrit commentaries on the Sūrya-siddhānta are known, only two other traditional commentaries on it have been published, as far as I know. The first is that by Parameśvara. This was edited by Kripa Shankar Shukla and published in 1957 (by Lucknow University). The verse in question, 1.47, giving the figure in question, is verse 1.46 in this edition, and it has the variant reading nanda rather than randhra (both standing for “nine”). The second is that by Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa. This was edited by Śrīcandra Pāṇḍeya and published in 1991 (by Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi). We do not have a critical edition of the Sūrya-siddhānta, in the known redaction, nor do we have any manuscript of the old version as summarized by Varāha-mihira in his Pañca-siddhāntikā.
Category: Occult Chronology | 5 comments
22
April
Dharmatā in the Questions of Maitreya, part 3
By David Reigle on April 22, 2012 at 9:33 pm
The “Questions of Maitreya” chapter speaks not only of the dharmatā (“true nature”) and svabhāva (“inherent nature”) as mentioned in the first post on this, it also speaks of the dhātu (“element”) itself. The Perfection of Wisdom texts had spoken of the unthinkable or inconceivable element (acintya-dhātu, e.g., Edward Conze, The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, pp. 123, 179, 183, 185, 188, 193, 249, 253, 277, 305, 370, 374, 376, 377). This chapter calls it the unspeakable or inexpressible element (nirabhilapya-dhātu, Conze, pp. 646-647, eleven occurrences, translated as “inexpressible realm”). Students of The Secret Doctrine will be reminded of these two adjectives, unthinkable and unspeakable, as applied to the first fundamental proposition of the Secret Doctrine, an omnipresent, eternal, boundless, and immutable principle (vol. 1, p. 14), which, as discussed here before, would be the dhātu, the one element. The “Questions of Maitreya” chapter is one of the most primary documents we have in relation to this fundamental teaching.
A new translation of the three key definitions from the “Questions of Maitreya” is given below. It is followed by “Translation Notes,” explaining how I understood the Sanskrit. These notes are given because Conze said that he and Lamotte have not understood an important phrase in the definition of dharmatā (p. 648, fn. 17). The notes show how I arrived at my translation of it. Also included below is the full Sanskrit text, which Conze and Iida did not give in their edition. They abbreviated what they regarded as repetitive parts of the text, giving only ellipses in their place. The full text is taken from the Sanskrit edition of the complete Prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra in 25,000 lines, which only recently became available. It was prepared by Vijay Raj Vajracharya, and published in 3 volumes, 2006-2008 (Sarnath, Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies). Before giving the translation, I must do what Conze did not do, and which led to Thurman’s criticism of his translations. The technical terms used must be briefly explained.
No one expects to understand a science such as physics or chemistry without first learning its technical terms and their framework. The same is true of religio-philosophic systems such as Madhyamaka or Yogācāra Buddhism. All of Buddhism takes for granted a familiarity with the dharmas, the factors of existence that make up its worldview, often translated as “phenomena.” This is primarily a psychological worldview rather than a physical worldview, like we are accustomed to from modern science. So the dharmas are mostly states of our psychological make-up. These have been just as minutely catalogued in the Buddhist science of Abhidharma as have the physical elements in modern science. Indeed, common lists of dharmas include 75 (Abhidharma-kośa) or 100 (Yogācāra) dharmas, much like the periodic table of chemical elements.
The most basic analysis of a person is in terms of the five skandhas, the five “aggregates” that make up a person. This has been an essential feature of Buddhism from the beginning, before the development of the detailed lists of dharmas. The definitions from the “Questions of Maitreya” of the three aspects of dharmas, or ways in which dharmas are to be seen, are given in relation to the five skandhas, then going on to include all dharmas up to the highest with the phrase, “up to buddha-dharmas.” We do not yet have standardized English translations for the five skandhas or “aggregates.” Common translations for them are: (1) rūpa, “form” or “matter”; (2) vedanā, “feeling” or “sensation”; (3) saṃjñā, “perception” or “perception and conception”; (4) saṃskāra, “formations” or “mental formations” or “karma-formations” or “volitional formations” or “volitions” or “dispositions” or “conditioning forces” or “compositional factors”; (5) vijñāna, “consciousness.”
There is wide consensus that, as one of the five aggregates that make up a person, rūpa (“form”) refers to “matter.” Although this is therefore a good translation, there is also wisdom in keeping the same translation term for the same original term wherever it occurs, as we learned from the marvelously consistent Tibetan translations of Sanskrit texts that comprise the Tibetan Buddhist canon. There, rūpa is translated as gzugs throughout. So I will stay with “form” for rūpa. For the second aggregate, vedanā, the translation term “sensation” is not very different from “feeling,” so I will use the more commonly used “feeling.” For the third aggregate, translators have pointed out that when saṃjñā is translated as “perception,” we must also know that “conception” is included in this skandha. The fourth skandha, saṃskārāḥ (plural), is quite the hardest to translate, as may be seen by its many renderings. I will here simply choose one of these, “conditioning forces.” The fifth skandha is translated by most translators as “consciousness” (although a few translate it as “perception” or “cognition”).
The “Questions of Maitreya” chapter begins with Maitreya asking the Buddha how, if the inherent nature (svabhāva) of all dharmas is non-existence (abhāva), should a bodhisattva practicing the Perfection of Wisdom train in the bodhisattva training in regard to “form” (the first aggregate), “feeling” (the second aggregate), etc., etc. That is, if all dharmas are ultimately non-existent, how does a bodhisattva (who wishes to help others) understand the dharmas that make up the people and the world that are to be helped. The Buddha replies that the bodhisattva should understand all dharmas as just names (nāma-mātra).
Maitreya then says: when the name “form,” etc., is perceived as having substance or being real (sa-vastuka), based on it being the outward sign (nimitta) of something that is conditioned (saṃskāra), then how can a bodhisattva train in understanding “form,” etc., to be just a name. That is, since each thing we see is real in that it is produced by causes and conditions, how can we regard it as being merely a name. Maitreya here uses a phrase that is used throughout the “Questions of Maitreya” chapter, saṃskāra-nimitta, translated by Conze as “the sign of something conditioned.” This is a perfectly good translation, but it needs to be explained.
Something conditioned or compounded (saṃskāra) is something that is produced by causes and conditions, and that is put together or made of parts. This means that it is transitory or impermanent, and will not last. Everything in the phenomenal world is something conditioned or compounded (saṃskāra, saṃskṛta). So to speak of something conditioned is a way to refer to everything in the phenomenal or perceptible world. Then, we do not perceive a thing in its entirety, but we see only the outward sign or visible representation of it. This is its sign (nimitta), how we characterize or define it. It is a way to refer to something according to how we see it, which allows us to identify it, name it, etc. The Tibetan translation of nimitta used here, mtshan ma (as opposed to rgyu mtshan or rgyu meaning cause), emphasizes its meaning as something’s defining characteristic. The compound saṃskāra-nimitta, translated by Conze as “the sign of something conditioned,” thus may also be translated as “defined by being conditioned.” It refers to all dharmas except the unconditioned or uncompounded dharmas, namely, nirvāṇa, and sometimes also ākāśa (“space”), and sometimes also tathatā (“suchness”).
Maitreya goes on to point out here: if a thing that is defined by being conditioned, to which we give the name “form,” etc., actually lacked any substance or any reality, if there was really nothing there, then it would not be tenable to give it the name, “form,” etc. There would be nothing to give a name to. The Buddha replies that the name is adventitious (āgantuka), not inherent, projected onto a thing that is defined by being conditioned, such as form, etc. All along, Maitreya has been asking about the inherent nature (svabhāva) of dharmas. This reply, that the name is adventitious, leads to a discussion of whether the inherent nature of form, etc., is actually perceived. If the name is adventitious, then perhaps it is the inherent nature of form, etc., that is perceived. This is denied. If the name is perceived, then perhaps the name is the inherent nature of form, etc. This is denied.
Maitreya then wonders if form, etc., completely do not exist by way of their inherent characteristics (sva-lakṣaṇa), here used as a kind of synonym of inherent nature (svabhāva). The Buddha replies: I do not say that form, etc., completely do not exist by way of their inherent characteristics. Maitreya responds: how do form, etc., exist? The Buddha replies that they exist by worldly convention, not in reality or ultimately (paramārthataḥ).
Maitreya now brings in the inexpressible “element” (dhātu). He says that, as he understands the Buddha’s teachings, the “element” is inexpressible (nirabhilapya) ultimately. The implication is that, ultimately (paramārthataḥ), one cannot say it exists or does not exist. Students of The Secret Doctrine will here be reminded of H. P. Blavatsky’s statement, “It is ‘Be-ness’ rather than Being” (vol. 1, p. 14). Maitreya wonders, then, why the Buddha would say that form, etc., do not exist ultimately. Wouldn’t they be the same as the element, so that one could only say about their existence that it is inexpressible ultimately, rather than that they do not exist ultimately? The Buddha replies: things that are defined by being conditioned, i.e., form, etc., are neither different from the element nor not different from the element. Maitreya asks how, then, should they be understood.
The Buddha says that they should be understood under three aspects: (1) parikalpita (kun brtags), “falsely imagined,” or “imaginary”; (2) vikalpita (rnam par brtags), “conceptualized,” or “constructed by thought”; and (3) dharmatā (chos nyid), “dharma-ness” or “true nature.” Maitreya asks: which is the falsely imagined form, etc.; which is the thought-constructed form, etc.; which is the true nature form, etc. The Buddha then gives the definitions of these three, where the present translation begins.
The Sanskrit text accompanying the translation is from Āryapañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, ed. Vijay Raj Vajracharya, vol. 3, pp. 1328-1329. This corresponds to the Conze and Iida edition, p. 238, nos. 39-41 (attached earlier). The corresponding Tibetan translation from the Prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra in 18,000 lines is found in the Collated Kangyur, vol. 31, pp. 387-388; the one from the Prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra in 25,000 lines is found in vol. 28, pp. 775-776. In the revised Prajñā-pāramitā-sūtra in 25,000 lines, it is found in the Collated Tengyur, vol. 51, pp. 790-791. As said before, Conze’s English translation of this passage is found in his book, The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, p. 648 (attached earlier). Here is the Sanskrit text and new translation:
bhagavān āha | yā maitreya saṃskāra-nimitte vastuni rūpam iti nāma saṃjñā saṃketaḥ prajñaptir vyavahāraḥ niśritya rūpa-svabhāvatayā parikalpanedaṃ parikalpitaṃ rūpam | yan maitreya tasmin saṃskāra-nimitte vastuni vedaneti saṃjñeti saṃskārā iti vijñānam iti yāvad buddha-dharmā iti nāma saṃjñā saṃketaḥ prajñaptir vyavahāraḥ niśritya vedanā-svabhāvatayā saṃjñā-svabhāvatayā saṃskāra-svabhāvatayā vijñāna-svabhāvatayā yāvad buddha-dharma-svabhāvatayā parikalpaneyaṃ parikalpitā vedanā-saṃjñā-saṃskārā vijñānaṃ yāvad ime parikalpitā buddha-dharmāḥ |
“The Blessed One said: Maitreya, in regard to a thing that is defined by being conditioned, the false imagination as to the inherent nature of form, based on the name, notion, label, designation, or conventional expression ‘form’, is the falsely imagined form. Maitreya, in regard to this thing that is defined by being conditioned, the false imagination as to the inherent nature of feeling, as to the inherent nature of perception, as to the inherent nature of conditioning forces, as to the inherent nature of consciousness, up to as the inherent nature of buddha-dharmas, based on the name, notion, label, designation, or conventional expression ‘feeling’, ‘perception’, ‘conditioning forces’, ‘consciousness’, up to ‘buddha-dharmas’, is the falsely imagined feeling, perception, conditioning forces, consciousness, up to the falsely imagined buddha-dharmas.”
yā punas tasya saṃskāra-nimittasya vastuno vikalpa-mātra-dharmatāyām avasthānatā vikalpaṃ pratītyābhilapanatā tatredaṃ nāma saṃjñā saṃketaḥ prajñaptir vyavahāro rūpam iti vedaneti saṃjñeti saṃskārā iti vijñānam iti yāvad buddha-dharmā iti | idaṃ vikalpitaṃ rūpam iyaṃ vikalpitā vedanā iyaṃ vikalpitā saṃjñā ime vikalpitāḥ saṃskārā idaṃ vikalpitaṃ vijñānam ime yāvad vikalpitā buddha-dharmāḥ |
“Next, this thing that is defined by being conditioned is established as having the nature of a thought-construction only. Dependent on the thought-construction is an expression. What, in regard to this, is the name, notion, label, designation, or conventional expression ‘form’, ‘feeling’, ‘perception’, ‘conditioning forces’, ‘consciousness’, up to ‘buddha-dharmas’, this is the thought-constructed form, this is the thought-constructed feeling, this is the thought-constructed perception, these are the thought-constructed conditioning forces, this is the thought-constructed consciousness, up to these are the thought-constructed buddha-dharmas.”
yā utpādād vā tathāgatānām anutpādād vā sthitaiveyaṃ dharmāṇāṃ dharmatā dharma-sthititā dharma-dhātur yat tena parikalpita-rūpeṇa tasya vikalpita-rūpasya nityaṃ nitya-kālaṃ dhruvaṃ dhruva-kālaṃ niḥsvabhāvatā dharma-nairātmyaṃ tathatā bhūta-koṭir idaṃ dharmatā rūpam iyaṃ dharmatā vedanā saṃjñā saṃskārā vijñānam ime yāvad buddha-dharmāḥ |
“Whether tathāgatas arise or do not arise, this true nature (dharmatā) of dharmas simply remains; [it is] the condition for the abiding of dharmas (dharma-sthititā), the element of dharmas (dharma-dhātu), the absence of self in dharmas (dharma-nairātmya), which is the absence of inherent nature (niḥsvabhāva) of this thought-constructed form as [it appears as] this falsely imagined form throughout permanent, permanent time, and constant, constant time, [it is] suchness (tathatā), [it is] the reality limit (bhūta-koṭi). This is the true nature form (dharmatā rūpa), this is the true nature feeling, perception, conditioning forces, consciousness, up to these are the [true nature] buddha-dharmas.”
Translation Notes
Before getting to the problem area, a few other translation issues should be clarified. Sanskrit regularly uses what has been called a yat-tat correlative, where the relative pronoun yat, “what, which,” is correlated with the demonstrative pronoun tat, “this, that.” This includes all forms of the Sanskrit pronouns, in any gender or any declension, and not only the forms yat and tat. Such a construction with correlating pronouns is not used in English. In our first definition above, the core sentence is: yā parikalpanā idaṃ parikalpitaṃ rūpam, where the correlating pronouns are yā, “what,” and idam, “this.” It says, literally, “what is false imagination, this is falsely imagined form.” But in English, we merely say, “false imagination is falsely imagined form.” We do not use the correlating pronouns. So my English translation of this definition purposely omits these pronouns. This same core sentence structure is used for all three definitions, beginning with yā, “what,” and ending with the correlative idam, “this.” In the second two definitions, however, the beginning part giving the “what” is lengthy, so the definition requires more than one English sentence. In the second definition, I have not omitted the “what,” but have moved it to the beginning of the third English sentence. Even though it does not make very good English, I have retained it in the translation because the correlating “this” in the ending part of the definition is repeated for each item. In the third definition, I have omitted translating the “what” in the lengthy beginning part of the definition, but I have translated the “this” at the beginning of the English sentence giving the ending part of the definition.
On specific terms: As already said, the word nimitta, often translated as “sign,” is here translated in the compound saṃskāra-nimitta as “defined by,” following the Tibetan translation of it used here, mtshan ma. The word saṃketa is also often translated as “sign.” Conze here translated it as “social agreement.” I have here translated it as “label.”
Then, the compound dharma-sthititā is not easy to understand. Bhikkhu Bodhi translates its Pali equivalent as “the stableness of the Dhamma.” Conze translates it as “the established order of dharmas.” My translation of it as “the condition for the abiding of dharmas” is based on the form of this catechism-like saying as it occurs in the Saṃyuktāgama: utpādād vā tathāgatānām anutpādād vā sthitā eveyaṃ dharmatā dharma-sthitaye dhātuḥ. Here, sthiti is declined in the dative case, “for the abiding of dharmas.” The whole sentence may be translated as: “Whether tathāgatas arise or do not arise, this true nature (dharmatā) simply remains, the element (dhātu) for the abiding of dharmas.” The Sanskrit of this text was discovered among the Turfan finds in the early 1900s. See: Funfundzwanzig Sūtras des Nidānasaṃyukta, edited by Chandrabhāl Tripāṭhī (Sanskrittexte aus den Turfanfunden, vol. 8. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1962, p. 148). The word “condition” in my translation renders the -tā suffix.
The problematic phrase is given by Conze (p. 648) as: “the absence of own-being which is characteristic eternally and through all eternity, constantly and through all time, of that discerned form because of that imagined form.” In a footnote to this, Conze refers to and partially quotes a French translation by Lamotte, concluding: “We have not understood this phrase.” The reference is given as “Lamotte II 1. p. 91.” As happens all too often, this is not listed in the abbreviations, and there is no bibliography. Paging backwards, we find on p. 583 fn. a reference to “E. Lamotte, Le traite,” but this is a different book. The reference, it turns out, is to Lamotte’s 1938 book, La somme du grand vehicule, tome II, fascicule I. There, in a long footnote quoting material from the Chinese translation of the Upanibandhana commentary, this same passage occurs. The phrase in question is: “En raison de cette matiere imaginaire (parikalpitarūpa), la matiere pensee (vikalparūpa) est eternelle et constante.” This is then summed up as: “En raison de ces attributs de Buddha imaginaires (parikalpitabuddhadharma), les attributs de Buddha penses (vikalpabuddhadharma) sont eternels et constants.” Ani Migme translates Lamotte’s French of these phrases as (p. 133): “Because of this imaginary nature (parikalpitarūpa), conceptual form (vikalparūpa) is eternal and constant”; and “Because of these imaginary attributes of the Buddha (parikalpitabuddhadharma), the conceptual attributes of the Buddha (vikalpabuddhadharma) are eternal and constant.”
As may be seen, Conze’s and Lamotte’s translations agree in saying “because of that imagined form/this imaginary nature.” One must wonder why anything eternal and constant would be because of something imagined or imaginary (I have translated this as “falsely imagined,” because the prefix “pari” gives kalpita, “imagined,” the sense of “falsely”). The “because of” is a translation of the instrumental case ending, “-ena,” on parikalpita-rūpeṇa, and its corresponding pronoun declined in the instrumental case, tena. The instrumental case is not always easy to translate, because it has more than one meaning. One of the less-known meanings of the instrumental case is “as.” It is not found in Sanskrit textbooks known to me. But it can be found in this meaning in a related text, Vasubandhu’s commentary on Maitreya’s Madhyānta-vibhāga, 3.2: tat punar daśa-vidhaṃ daśa-vidhātmagrāha-pratipakṣeṇa veditavyam, “Further, this group of ten [principles] should be understood as an antidote (pratipakṣeṇa) to the group of ten graspings of self.” It can also be found in this meaning in another old text, Gauḍapāda’s Māṇḍūkya-kārikā, 3.3: ātmā hy ākāśavaj jīvair ghaṭākāśair ivoditaḥ, “The ātman has arisen as individual souls (jīvair, instrumental plural), like space as the space in pots.” Indeed, this text even uses it in this meaning with the cognate verbal, vikalpita, in 2.17 and 2.19. The latter is: prāṇādibhir anantais tu bhāvair etair vikalpitaḥ, “[It] is imagined as prāṇa, etc., as these infinite existing things.” This establishes that the instrumental case can mean “as.” Does it mean “as” here?
In a text by Vasubandhu, the Tri-svabhāva-nirdeśa, the corresponding three svabhāvas taught in the Yogācāra school of Buddhism are explained. These are: (1) parikalpita svabhāva, the “falsely imagined nature”; (2) paratantra svabhāva, the “dependent nature”; and (3) pariniṣpanna svabhāva, the “perfect nature.” They are defined in verses 2-4, which I translate as follows:
yat khyāti paratantro ’sau yathā khyāti sa kalpitaḥ |
pratyayādhīna-vṛttitvāt kalpanā-mātra-bhāvataḥ || 2 ||
2. What appears is the dependent, because it functions in dependence on conditions. As it appears is the imagined, because of being imagination only.
tasya khyātur yathā-khyānaṃ yā sadāvidyamānatā |
jñeyaḥ sa pariniṣpannaḥ svabhāvo ’nanyathātvataḥ || 3 ||
3. The ever non-existence of what appears, as it appears, is to be known as the perfect nature, because it is changeless.
tatra kiṃ khyāty asatkalpaḥ kathaṃ khyāti dvayātmanā |
tasya kā nāstitā tena yā tatrādvaya-dharmatā || 4 ||
4. Of these, what appears? The imagination of what is unreal. How does it appear? In the form of duality. What is the non-existence of that as that (tena)? Their true nature without duality.
Here in verses 2 and 3, the word yathā, “as” (in the sense of “the way in which”), is twice used to define the (falsely) imagined nature (kalpita used for parikalpita to fit the meter): “as it appears.” Then in verse 4, the pronoun declined in the instrumental case, tena, clearly means “as that/this.” This is also what it means in the problematic phrase from the “Questions of Maitreya” chapter. It does not here mean “because of this/that,” as Lamotte took it in his early work (translated from a Chinese translation rather than the Sanskrit original) that he never had time to go back and revise, and as Conze also gave but responsibly added a note saying, “We have not understood this phrase.” It here means “as this falsely imagined form”; so I have translated this phrase as “the absence of inherent nature (niḥsvabhāva) of this thought-constructed form as [it appears as] this falsely imagined form throughout permanent, permanent time, and constant, constant time.” I added in brackets “[it appears as]” so that “as this falsely imagined form” would not be taken as “as also this falsely imagined form.”
Not a single one of the seven English translations of the Tri-svabhāva-nirdeśa now available took tena in verse 4 as “as that/this.” Two translations simply omitted the tena (Sujitkumar Mukhopadhyaya, The Trisvabhāvanirdeśa of Vasubandhu, 1939; and Stefan Anacker, Seven Works of Vasubandhu, 1984). Two translations took the tena as “with this/that” (Fernando Tola and Carmen Dragonetti, “with this (duality),” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 1983, p. 252; and Karl Brunnholzl, “with that [duality],” Straight from the Heart, 2007). Two seem to have taken the tena in the meaning “by this,” and then paraphrased this as “will result from” (Thomas A. Kochumuttom, A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience, 1982), or as “is the consequence of” (Jay Garfield, Empty Words, 2002, but the translation is too loose to tell for sure). One seems to have taken the tena as “in virtue of which” and placed it with the last metrical foot of the verse (Thomas E. Wood, Mind Only, 1991). Despite the yathā (“as”) in the definitions in the preceding two verses, the meaning of the instrumental case as “as” is too little known.
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21
April
The Book of Dzyan – A short presentation by David Pratt
By admin on April 21, 2012 at 4:26 pm
A short presentation of the context of the Book of Dzyan, as described by H.P.Blavatsky and other theosophists has been put together by David Pratt, and, thanks to his agreement, it is reprinted here as a brief introduction to the subject. More on Theosophy Exploration can be found on David Pratt’s web site .
o-o-o-o-o
The Book of Dzyan
H.P. Blavatsky begins the first chapter of Isis Unveiled (1:1) with the following words:
There exists somewhere in this wide world an old Book – so very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew document on occult learning – the Siphra Dzeniouta – was compiled from it, and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light of a literary relic.
She goes on to describe one of the illustrations in the book, which shows Adam emanating from the Divine Essence.(1)
In The Secret Doctrine (1:xliii), Blavatsky writes:
The ‘very old Book’ is the original work from which the many volumes of Kiu-ti were compiled. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even the Sepher Jezirah, the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China’s primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Purânas in India, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our) race . . .
In an article entitled ‘The Secret Books of “Lam-Rim” and Dzyan’, which was not published during her lifetime, Blavatsky says that the Book of Dzyan, on which The Secret Doctrine is based, is one of the volumes of Kiu-te:
The Book of Dzyan – from the Sanskrit word ‘Dhyâna’ (mystic meditation) – is the first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name. Thirty-five volumes of Kiu-te for exoteric purposes and the use of the laymen may be found in the possession of the Tibetan Gelugpa Lamas, in the library of any monastery; and also fourteen books of Commentaries and Annotations on the same by the initiated Teachers.
Strictly speaking, those thirty-five books ought to be termed ‘The Popularised Version’ of the Secret Doctrine, full of myths, blinds, and errors; the fourteen volumes of Commentaries, on the other hand – with their translations, annotations, and an ample glossary of Occult terms, worked out from one small archaic folio, the Book of the Secret Wisdom of the World – contain a digest of all the Occult Sciences. These, it appears, are kept secret and apart, in the charge of the Teshu-Lama, of Shigatse. The Books of Kiu-te are comparatively modern, having been edited within the last millennium, whereas, the earliest volumes of theCommentaries are of untold antiquity . . .(2)
G. de Purucker makes the following comments on the Book of Dzyan:
The Book of Dzyan, as a physical roll or book or manuscript, . . . is, as H.P.B. says, not very old, probably about a thousand years, and is part of a well-known, more or less common Tibetan series of works, well-known even exoterically, called Kiu-ti . . . The substance, however, of the Book of Dzyan, which is simply the Tibetan or Mongolian way of pronouncing the Sanskrit Dhyâna, is very ancient, even highly archaic, goes right back into Atlantean times, and even beyond as regards the doctrine taught. . . .
The Book of Dzyan is written in Tibetan, at least part of it or most of it, is interspersed with a lot of exoteric stuff, but the real occult part of the Book of Dzyan is one of the first of the Kiu-ti volumes and deals mainly with cosmogony, and later on to a less extent, I believe, with anthropogony or the beginnings of mankind.(3)
Blavatsky states that the Stanzas of Dzyan as presented in The Secret Doctrine are a modern translation that blends together texts and glosses to make them more comprehensible. She speaks of Tibetan and Senzar versions of the stanzas, and says that extracts are given from the Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar commentaries and glosses.(4) She also explains that Senzar, the mystery language of the prehistoric ages, is ‘the language now called SYMBOLISM’.(5) An example is the series of glyphs from ‘an archaic manuscript’ which are described in the first few pages of the Proem (SD 1:1-5), and represent the dawn of a new manvantara.
In the Introductory to The Secret Doctrine (1:xxii), Blavatsky writes:
One of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the correctness and reliability of the whole work will be the preliminary STANZAS: ‘How can the statements contained in them be verified?’ . . . The Book of Dzyan (or ‘Dzan’) is utterly unknown to our Philologists, or at any rate was never heard of by them under its present name.
Despite all the information provided by Blavatsky, the actual identity of the public books of Kiu-te remained a mystery for over 80 years after her death. The existence of such books was called into question, and they were often dismissed as figments of her imagination. However, in 1975 H.J. Spierenburg (6) identified the Books of Kiu-te as the Tibetan Buddhist Tantras – the correct transliteration of the Tibetan title is rGyud-sde, but ‘Kiu-te’ is a good approximation of the pronunciation. In 1981, another theosophical scholar, David Reigle, independently came to the same conclusion regarding the identity of the Books of Kiu-te.(7) He writes:
As [Blavatsky] said, they are indeed found in the library of any Tibetan Gelugpa monastery, as also in those of the other sects (Kargyudpa, Nyingmapa, and Sakyapa), and they are indeed highly occult works, being regarded by the entire Tibetan Buddhist tradition as embodying the Buddha’s secret teachings. . . . [O]nly the spelling of the term foiled previous attempts to identify them.(8)
The spelling ‘Kiu-te’ (or Khiu-te) is taken from the writings of the Capuchin monk Horace della Penna. Blavatsky quotes his extremely negative views on the Books of Kiu-te in her article ‘The Secret Books of “Lam-Rim” and Dzyan’, and they are refuted by the ‘Chohan-Lama’, ‘the Chief of the Archive-registrars of the secret Libraries of the Dalai and Ta-shü-hlumpo Lamas-Rimboche’, in an article entitled ‘Tibetan Teachings’, written at Blavatsky’s request but not published until after her death.(9)
The Tibetan Buddhist Sacred Canon is divided into two parts: the Kanjur, containing the Buddha’s Word, and the Tanjur, containing commentaries. Reigle believes that the Book of Dzyan may be the Mûla (Root) Kâlachakra Tantra – which is missing. Rather than being ‘lost’, it was probably withdrawn from the outer world, just as various other esoteric works have been either withdrawn or abridged.(10) Given Blavatsky’s remark that the Book of Dzyan is ‘the first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te’, it is significant that the Laghu (Abridged) Kâlachakra Tantra, which is still available, is always placed first among the Books of Kiu-te in editions of the Kanjur. The Kâlachakra Tantra is the only Buddhist Tantra whose subject matter resembles the cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis of The Secret Doctrine. According to Reigle, ‘Dzyan’ is a Tibetan phonetic rendering of the Sanskrit jñâna (wisdom), the result of dhyâna (meditation), and ‘Jñâna’ is the title of the fifth and last section of theKâlachakra Tantra. However, none of the stanzas that Blavatsky quotes from the Book of Dzyan has so far been located in the abridged Kâlachakra Tantra or in verses from the root Kâlachakra Tantra quoted in other Buddhist writings.
Blavatsky states that the Kâlachakra is the first and most important work in the Gyut (rGyud) division of the Kanjur, the division of mystic knowledge.(11) The Kâlachakra Tantra is considered to be the pinnacle of the Buddha’s esoteric doctrine, and is the only Tantra said to have come directly from Shambhala – which in theosophical literature is regarded as the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Adepts. Furthermore, the Panchen (or Tashi) Lama is the special protector of Kâlachakra, and his monastery, Tashi-lhunpo, near Shigatse, has been the major centre for Kâlachakra studies in Tibet. Blavatsky states that the secret volumes of Kiu-te are in the charge of the Tashi Lama, with whom her adept teachers were closely associated. In a letter to Franz Hartmann in 1886, she writes:
There is beyond the Himalayas a nucleus of Adepts, of various nationalities; and the Teschu Lama knows them, and they act together, and some of them are with him and yet remain unknown in their true character even to the average lamas . . . My Master and K.H. and several others I know personally are there, coming and going . . .(12)
In the preface to The Voice of the Silence, Blavatsky states that the work is a translation of extracts from The Book of the Golden Precepts, which is part of the same series as the Book of Dzyan. In The Voice it is asked: ‘Wouldst thou become a Yogi of “Time’s Circle”?’ (p. 29) – ‘time’s circle’ or ‘wheel of time’ is the literal translation of kâlachakra. The Voice goes on to say that to become such a yogi, one must not retreat into selfish seclusion, but follow the path of compassionate service to mankind:
Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition. Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin. . . .
Shalt thou abstain from action? Not so shall gain thy soul her freedom. To reach Nirvâna one must reach Self-Knowledge, and Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child. (p. 31)
In 1927 Alice Leighton Cleather and Basil Crump issued a reprint of The Voice of the Silence under the auspices of the Chinese Buddhist Research Society in Peking. In their editorial foreword they state that they undertook the work at the request of the (ninth) Panchen Lama, ‘as the only true exposition in English of the Heart Doctrine of the Mahayâna and its noble ideal of self-sacrifice for humanity’. The Panchen Lama contributed a brief message on the path of liberation. David Reigle says that the time of the ninth Panchen Lama (1883-1937) seemed to mark a new period of growth for the Kâlachakra teachings. During his extensive travels he established new Kâlachakra Colleges in monasteries in Tibet and Mongolia.
While living in Peking, China, he presented the editors of The Voice of the Silence with a small Kâlachakra treatise, and a few years later, in 1932, he there gave the Kâlachakra Initiation to an immense gathering. These large public Initiations are meant to qualify candidates to begin the study and practice of the Kâlachakra Tantra, or, according to the present Dalai Lama, at least to establish a karmic relationship with the Kâlachakra teachings.(13)
The Dalai Lama gave the Kâlachakra initiation in Madison, Wisconsin, in July 1981, the first time it had been given in the West.
Reigle hopes that a Sanskrit or Tibetan manuscript of the Book of Dzyan will be made available in the not-too-distant future, as this would have a major impact on the academic world and undermine its scepticism towards theosophy.(14) We can be confident that The Book of Dzyan will be released as soon as the time is ripe, for the mahâtmas ‘know best what knowledge is best for mankind at a particular stage of its evolution’.(15)
References
- See The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, TUP, 2nd ed., 1975, p. 45; H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, TUP, 1977 (1888), 1:xlii.
- H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, TPH, 1950-91, 14:422.
- G. de Purucker, Studies in Occult Philosophy, TUP, 1973, pp. 452-4.
- The Secret Doctrine, 1:22-3.
- Ibid., 1:309. See also: Studies in Occult Philosophy, pp. 442-3; John Algeo, Senzar: The mystery of the mystery language, Theosophical History Centre, 1988.
- H.J. Spierenburg, The Buddhism of H.P. Blavatsky, PLP, 1991, pp. 135-50.
- David Reigle, The Books of Kiu-te or The Tibetan Buddhist Tantras: a preliminary analysis, Wizards Bookshelf, 1983; David Reigle & Nancy Reigle, Blavatsky’s Secret Books: twenty years’ research, Wizards Bookshelf, 1999. See also Robert Hütwohl, ‘The Practical Vision of Sri Kâlacakra’, The High Country Theosophist, April 1997, pp. 9-19, Dec. 1997, p. 13.
- Reigle, The Books of Kiu-te, p. 1.
- Blavatsky Collected Writings, 6:94-112. See also Jean Overton Fuller, Blavatsky and Her Teachers, East-West Publications, 1988, pp. 111-2.
- See The Secret Doctrine, 1:xxiii-xxxv, 68, 269-72.
- Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:402; The Secret Doctrine, 1:52fn.
- Charles J. Ryan, H.P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement, TUP, 2nd ed., 1975, p. 85. See also: Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:425; Theosophical Glossary (1892), Theos. Co., 1973, p. 305.
- Reigle, The Books of Kiu-te, p. 37.
- The High Country Theosophist, Feb. 1995, pp. 29-32, Dec. 1995, pp. 246-9.
- Blavatsky Collected Writings, 6:265.
by David Pratt. November 1998.
Category: Book of Dzyan | No comments yet
13
April
The Mokṣopāya, the unrevised Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha
By David Reigle on April 13, 2012 at 3:21 am
The value of the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha has long been known to students of Theosophy. Already in 1936 the classic study of this text, The Philosophy of the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha by Sanskrit scholar B. L. Atreya, was published by the Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India. As I had noted elsewhere, the distinctive terms used by the Advaita Vedāntin Theosophist T. Subba Row, cid-ākāśa and also cit-śakti, do not come from the standard treatises on Advaita Vedānta, but rather come from the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha.
In the early 1990s an extraordinary discovery was made. In the process of assembling manuscripts from which to prepare a critical edition of the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha, Indologist Walter Slaje found an entirely distinct, unrevised recension of this text that called itself the Mokṣopāya, the “Means to Liberation.” It is equally huge, about 30,000 verses, but it preserves a considerably more original version of the text.
Walter Slaje wrote about this in full detail in his 1994 German language book, Vom Mokṣopāya-Śāstra zum Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha-Mahārāmāyaṇa (“From the Mokṣopāya-Śāstra to the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha-Mahārāmāyaṇa”). This major find led to the Mokṣopāya Project, with government and university funding to prepare a critical edition of this large and important text. A brief account of this in English by Slaje, titled “The Mokṣopāya Project,” was published in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. 77, 1996, pp. 209-221 (attached).
In the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha, a pervasive layer of Vedānta ideas has been added to the advaita or non-dual teachings of the Mokṣopāya. Perhaps the most significant difference between the two is the well-known fact that Advaita Vedānta takes the authority of scripture as the only truly valid means of higher knowledge, thereby discounting the role of reasoning in reaching higher knowledge. The Mokṣopāya does just the opposite, taking reasoning as the valid means of higher knowledge, and entirely discounting the authority of scripture. Another difference is that terminology now found primarily in Buddhist texts has been systematically replaced. In this, and in its emphasis on pure advaita or non-dualism, the Mokṣopāya is very reminiscent of Gauḍapāda’s Māṇḍūkya-kārikā. Slaje describes some of the “willful changes” that were made in the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha in the above-mentioned article, p. 212, including:
“an attempt to ‘vedānticize’ the text, which—though it does teach monism (advaita)—has nothing in common with the particularities of Śaṅkara’s Vedānta, but indeed very much with Gauḍapāda’s Kārikās and the Laṅkāvatārasūtra of the Mahāyāna.”
In Gauḍapāda’s text we had only a small example of these teachings, about 200 verses. Now we have a massive source of these teachings in its unrevised and more original form. It promises to be a fundamental resource for students of Theosophy.
The Mokṣopāya project has been underway for about two decades now, and the long-awaited results of this painstaking research are now seeing the light of day. In the 1990s three small volumes of the fragmentary commentary Mokṣopāya-ṭīkā were published, followed by a fourth in 2002, giving a taste of what this unrevised text has to offer. In 2011 the first two volumes of the critical edition of the Mokṣopāya itself were published, and the third volume in 2012. They were published in Germany by Harrassowitz (http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de), and are expensive. I have not yet seen them. Of particular interest for Book of Dzyan research is the large third chapter, the utpatti-prakaraṇa or section on cosmogony, published as volume 2 of the now available volumes.
Category: Noteworthy Books | 5 comments
12
April
Dharmadhâtu = Buddha Nature = Clear Light
By Jacques Mahnich on April 12, 2012 at 10:10 pm
The Chittamatra tradition of the Middle Way teaches, according to the Shentong tradition, that the Dharmadhâtu is the same as the Clear Light and the same as the Buddha Nature (Tathagatagarbha).
From “A Treatise on Buddha Nature” by Rangjung Dorje (excerpt from : “On Buddha Essence by Khenchen Thrangu”)
- p.21 : « The element has no creator, but it is given this name, because it retains its own characteristics. It (the element) is different from all other things in that it possesses its own characteristics, and while being empty and not having any true reality, it also has the nature of luminosity. »
p.47 : « It (the dharmadhâtu) could also be called the union of wisdom and space, where space is the aspect of emptiness and wisdom is the aspect of clarity. »
p.62 : « The aspect of space is emptiness, that is, the absence of any true reality . Since beginningless time, phenomena have been without any reality , and the nature of our mind has also been without any reality. This is the space or emptiness phenomena, or we could say the dharmadhâtu. »
p.76 : « The dharmadhâtu and the buddha nature are the same ; they cannot be separated…When talking about the emptiness aspect we say dharmadhâtu, and when talking about the luminosity aspect we say buddha nature. »
It is confirmed by other scriptures : From “Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra – Alex Wayman”
p.188 : from the Pancakrama II,29 commentary : The great Science (mahavidyâ) is the Dharmadhâtu, the Clear Light.
p.193 : from Tson-kha-pa commentary on the Caturdevîparipricchâ : « The three vijnânas proceed from the the 18-fold dharmadhâtu which is the Clear Light of Death. »
p.201 : from the school of Buddhajnânapâda – Vitapâda’s Muktitilaka-nâma-vyâkhyâna : « The self-existence of the non-duality of the Profound and the Bright has the nature of pervading all states (bhâva) and is not included in the dharmas of samsâra ; it is called Dharmadhâtu. »
Category: Dhatu | No comments yet
